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Making sure I have this straight... (upgrading from OS X 10.4 to Snow Leopard)

J

J.D.M.

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 12, 2007
21
0
Hey everybody!

I'm trying to find out what it would take to upgrade an iMac currently running Tiger to run Snow Leopard (the main motivation being able to run the new version of iTunes). From what I understand, I can purchase Snow Leopard and upgrade that way...but I wouldn't have iLife without purchasing the box set. Is that correct? I do currently have the iLife software in Tiger, if that makes any difference.

Also, when upgrading operating systems, do all of your files just transfer over from operating system to operating system?

If these questions are dumb, sorry. I've never done this before...and it's really late. :D

-J.D.M.
 
First of all, what model iMac do you have? I'm assuming that 10.4 is the OS that came with your system which means you could have either a PPC or an Intel chip. If you have a PPC system (ie: an iMac G5), the highest version of the OS you can install is 10.5.8 as the PPC architecture is no longer supported as of 10.6. If you have an Intel-based iMac (Core Duo or Core 2 Duo processor) you should have no problems running Snow Leopard (or even Lion). I would strongly suggest upgrading your RAM if you haven't already since, IIRC, those machines came with either 512MB or 1GB and you will noticed significant performance issues with limited RAM, especially if you only have 512MB. I believe the system should support up to 4GB (assuming it's Intel based)

As for the correct upgrade path, I'll leave that to someone else; all of my systems have been updated each release so I've never actually tried to skip over a version.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for your reply. :) The iMac in question has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 1 GB RAM.

I've been doing a bit more research...and, as far as I can tell, the Snow Leopard update (the $30 one) would work well...but, unfortunately, iLife would not work. Now this is what I'm thinking: I will be able to use the Mac App Store once I have Snow Leopard and each application within the iLife suite costs $15 on the Mac App Store. Even if I bought iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand separately, it would still come out a lot cheaper than paying almost $170 (that's what I'm seeing on Amazon for the box set with Snow Leopard, iLife, and iWork). I have Microsoft Office installed on the iMac...assuming that that would make it over with the OS upgrade, I could just use that and not be bothered with having to pay extra for the iWork suite. Does this sound like it would work? I hope it makes sense...if it doesn't, please feel free to ask for clarification.

I guess a lot of the plan hinges on whether Microsoft Office would still be on the computer after the OS change. I just wanted to consult with people more knowledgeable than myself before going for it. Thanks in advance!
 
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