8/26/09
11:05 am

MacMost Now 284: Snow Leopard FAQ

Get answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about Snow Leopard, Apple's new version of Mac OS X which comes out this Friday. Questions include: How does the upgrade work, will third-party applications work, will I get back drive space by upgrading, and should I upgrade?

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi this is gary with MacMost Now. well its two days away from the release of snow leopard. Let my answer some of the most frequently asked questions that I have been getting. So the first question is when? Well August 28 thats this friday should be able to walk into apple stores when they open and walk out with a fresh new copy of Snow Leopard. But how about on new macs? Well you'll be able to get Snow Leopard on new Macs the same day so any new mac that you purchase on that day from the apple store will have Snow Leopard on it. Well witch macs will run Snow Leopard? Well any Mac with an Intel Processor and 1 gig of memory or more, for a specific list of details theres a list at Apple's website. So how much does Snow Leopard cost? Its 29 dollars for an upgrade from Leopard to snow leopard now if you want to get a family pack which is basically five installs in one house hold you can get that for 49 dollars. well what if you are not upgrading from leopard? Well if you have an earlier copy of mac os 10 but you are still running and Intel machine you can purchase the full version of snow leopard as part of a box set that includes snow leopard the i life 09 suite and the i work 09 suite the whole thing will set you back one hundred and sixty nine dollars. well what if you just bought a new mac? Well if you bought it on or after june 8th you can get an upgrade for only the cost of shipping and handling but you have to order it within 90 days of your purchase, check out the Apple website for details. I've gotten this question a few times people want to know if they should buy snow leopard or snow leopard server? well snow leopard server isn't like windows ultimate, its not a premium version of snow leopard at all its for people actually running servers. So basically the answer is if you have to ask, no just buy snow leopard. So how does the upgrade work? Well you insert the DVD, and you run the upgrade it will walk you through step by step and it will replace leopard with snow leopard. it wont wipe your hardrive all your files, all your documents, all your music, all your photos, all that stuff will remain there and all applications will remail there as well and everything that is part of mac os 10 like mac applications, like safari, mail, may address book all that will be upgraded as well. Should you wipe your drive and do a clean install of snow leopard for the best results? Well i dont recommend it the installer supposedly really knows how to do things so you should just do the standard upgrade and then you dont have the hassle of trying to replace all of your applications, documents and things like that, but if you really want to supposedly on the disk there is disk utility which you can use to wipe the drive and then install a fresh copy of Snow Leopard but i dont recommend it. Well will all of your third party apps work on snow leopard? well yes and no, they should, anything intel compatible should work on it but some older third party apps may not if your not up to date on them or if the software vendor hasn't kept there code up to date then it may not work. Check with the software vendor cause to see whether or not they checked there application with snow leopard. There is also a website that you can go to that has a list of people that have tested different applications running under snow leopard. Should you back up before doing you snow leopard upgrade? Absolutely you should back up before doing any large upgrade or anything that effects your hard disk. you should backup on a regular basis using time machine that way you just dont have to worry about it. Snow Leopard is suppose to take up less space than leopard the applications have been streamlined so they take up less hard drive space, but will you get that advantage if you simply upgrade from leopard to snow leopard? the answer is yes, the installer will actually replace applications and parts of the that take up more space with the new Snow Leopard versions. Some reports are that you will get back up to 6 gigabytes of space on your hard drive immagine that an os upgrade that actually gives you back space on your hard drive. Quick time x is all new in snow leopard but what if you are a quick time pro user there is no quick time x pro the good news is that quick time 7 pro will remain on your hard drive and continue to work so while there are some features that are duplicated between the two there are special quick time 7 pro features you can just by running quick time 7 pro. So by far the biggest question that i get is should i upgrade to Snow Leopard? My answer is always going to be yes. I mean after all you take your car in for a tube up every once in a while dont you ? why wouldn't you take your computer in for a tune up? doing this is kind of like that I mean if you spend 600, 1000, 2000 on your mac shouldn't you be running the latest the greatest os on it? Apple has made it easier for us to decide with the low 29 dollar upgrade price. Now thats my look at the most frequently asked questions about snow leopard you can go and add your own frequently asked questions at the comments post at macs most.com Also starting on friday i will be posting a bunch of different episodes over the next weeks about the new features in snow leopard in addition to that on friday I've got an exciting announcement about snow leopard and MacMost that your not going to want to miss until next time this is gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now

Comments: 15 Responses to “MacMost Now 284: Snow Leopard FAQ”

Bud James

16 years ago

Gary,

Great web site! Very informative and fun.

Cheers.
Bud

Person who is buying snow leopard at 8:00 in the morning on friday!

16 years ago

Hi, i originally had an intel mac with tiger - i bought the mac box set
i've only been using it for a bit - idon't have a backup drive. if somethings goes wrong during the install of snow leopardcan i boot and install from the leopard DVD that came with my mac box set. and do an erase and install - i didn't get the family pack and i was wondering "Does this count as a second install?"

Thanks, Connor

Gary Rosenzweig

16 years ago

No. You can re-install it on the same computer as many times as you like to troubleshoot problems, etc.
But I would highly recommend starting to use backups. Tiger doesn't have Time Machine, but you can use Carbon Copy Cloner or some other free program to do a backup until you update. Hard drives are cheap and your data (docs, photos, etc) are priceless.

Roland

16 years ago

I have mine on order and apparently it is on its way to me! I hope that it is as good as it looks.

Jay Carr

16 years ago

What happens with my G5?

Gary Rosenzweig

16 years ago

You continue to run Leopard.

DB Wilde

16 years ago

I'm using this opportunity to increase my MacBook Pro 100 gig drive to 500 gig drive (Seagate). And installing Snow Leopard Box Set (with ilife and iwork), since I was using Tiger. Plus moving all data from old drive to new drive.

Using MicroCenter in Philly to do this work, since i don't want to hassle with it. They are suppose to have the box set in the store today Aug 27. I decided not to upgrade memory, have 1 gig (two 512's), which apparently will run Snow Leopard. Also have Word for Mac 04, so i'll see how this installs.

I'll let you know how MicroCenter does!!

Tyler

16 years ago

Hey Gary, sorry for the last minute question, but do you know if Apple stores will be giving out Snow Leopard t-shirts tomorrow as they did for Leopard?

Thanks
Tyler

Gary Rosenzweig

16 years ago

I haven't heard anything about them giving away shirts.

Tyler

16 years ago

Ok, Thank You. As always, thanks for the helpful information you provide!

DB Wilde

16 years ago

Update on Snow Leopard install on MacBook Pro with a new 500 gig Hard Drive from Tiger using 3rd party service - MicroCenter in Philadelphia.

Not a good experience so far.

1. Vendor installs new 500 gig Seagate drive to replace 100 gig drive.

2. They next installed snow leopard only without Mac Box Set from Tiger OS. Not sure if this was even possible - Tiger to Snow Leopard. I correct vendor on Box Set. Apparently Mac Box Set Snow Leopard is different from Snow Leopard only install. (excluding ilife and iwork)

3. Vendor notifies me they don't have Snow Leopard Box set, my original request, so i go to Apple store, buy it, and hand over to MicroCenter Philly.

4. Vendor installs Snow Leopard Box Set on new 500 gig drive. Vendor places all old data files in folder on new drive. I thought service was to migrate data / music into their respective Mac apps. (Itunes, calendar, podcasts).

5. On my own now, Itunes is biggest headache. Since music is in multiple folders and libraries over three years, getting music into Snow Leopard is risky, may lose playlists. (On 60 gig of music.)

More later.

db wilde

16 years ago

RESOLVED: Moving itunes from original Tiger Macbook Pro to new internal 500 gig drive with Snow Leopard (SL).
The secret is to take your exact music folder structure for tunes on old drive, in my case having multiple folders with itunes music, and copy them exactly from old drive into new Snow Leopard drive. SL is so advanced, there is no need to "add to library", all done automatic, very impressive, path integrity is kept doing this way.

cmeatmidnight

15 years ago

HI...I've decided to upgrade to SL but I am dual-booted with Windows 7 and Office 2007. Is there anything special I have to do when I do the upgrade because of the dual-boot? Thanks

Gary Rosenzweig

15 years ago

No. Your windows partition is separate. The snow leopard upgrade will only upgrade your Mac partition. I think it will add some things (compatibility) to your windows install, but there is nothing you need to do. Just back everything up like you would normally do before a major upgrade and run the installer.

cmeatmidnight

15 years ago

Thanks Gary....love your website! cMe

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MacMost Now 284: Snow Leopard FAQ

Comments: 15 Responses to “MacMost Now 284: Snow Leopard FAQ”

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