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New Mac user nervous about updating to 10.6.5 ???

CosmoPilot

CosmoPilot

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 8, 2010
1,537
372
South Carolina
Been in the Mac family 3 months now, and my experience has only been with 10.6.4 (mid 2010 MBP 13"). I've never 'upgraded' an OS on the Mac side so I have a few generic questions:

1.) Does this upgrade happen seamlessly like other upgrades? In other words, do I lose any data in the "normal" process? I know a back up is always recommended, but realistically, what are the odds of losing my data?

2.) If I experience problems, can I always go back to 10.6.4? If so, how and is it painful?

3.) Should I wait for a week or so to hear of any issues, or does Apple do a good job of flushing out bugs prior to OS releases?

Thanks in advance from a noob to the OS X camp!

Cosmo
 
I've never had a problem with an update. The idea of the update is to fix things. Data loss is pretty much impossible unless your HD fails at the same time. You can go back to 10.6.4 by reinstalling OS X (does not erase any of your personal data)
 
CosmoPilot said:
Been in the Mac family 3 months now, and my experience has only been with 10.6.4 (mid 2010 MBP 13"). I've never 'upgraded' an OS on the Mac side so I have a few generic questions:

1.) Does this upgrade happen seamlessly like other upgrades? In other words, do I lose any data in the "normal" process? I know a back up is always recommended, but realistically, what are the odds of losing my data?
Click to expand...

Realistically, .01% chance of data loss. I made sure and backed up first, just in case.

2.) If I experience problems, can I always go back to 10.6.4? If so, how and is it painful?
Click to expand...

I doubt you'll have any problems and you really won't want to go back. This update made my Mac's run a little faster and improved memory management.

3.) Should I wait for a week or so to hear of any issues, or does Apple do a good job of flushing out bugs prior to OS releases?
Click to expand...

If you are concerned, it would be wise to wait for a bit and read through MR's users and see what kind of experiences they are having and try to take notice if the ones with bad experiences are doing something out of the ordinary. My experience with both my Mac's have been fantastic.

Thanks in advance from a noob to the OS X camp!

Cosmo
Click to expand...

No problem.
 
CosmoPilot said:
1.) Does this upgrade happen seamlessly like other upgrades? In other words, do I lose any data in the "normal" process? I know a back up is always recommended, but realistically, what are the odds of losing my data?
Click to expand...
Low, very low, but you still should have a backup, which is good practice.

2.) If I experience problems, can I always go back to 10.6.4? If so, how and is it painful?
Click to expand...
You cannot downgrade, short of restoring your backup, or reloading OSX

3.) Should I wait for a week or so to hear of any issues, or does Apple do a good job of flushing out bugs prior to OS releases?
Click to expand...
That's generally good advice, also visit here and apple discussions to see what problems may have cropped up.
 
i bet the update will be fine for you. always is for me.

you cant downgrade as so many files are changed, well you can, but if you reinstall 10.6.4 it will be a .4/.5 hybrid mess. unless something knows the state of your system before the update, such as backup software like Time Machine, which you can restore a full previous backup from by restarting into your install DVD.
 
You really should consider using the Time Machine feature that came with your new Mac. It automatically backs up changed files on your Mac, so you don't have to worry about data loss.

There are times when an update does cause problems, but those are usually isolated. From the minute an update is released, there's a forum thread about it with hundreds of people posting their initial experiences with it. If there are problems, it's usually a day later (not a week) when you start to hear about them.
 
I haven't had an issue with this update. Computer hums merrily along.

Assuming you're using TimeMachine, make sure you do a backup before you update. Once you update if, for whatever reason, it breaks something simply restore from that backup to downgrade back to 10.6.4.
 
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