Is there anything else I should do maintenance wise? I notice alot of mac owners have onyx, should I run this? & are there any particular settings to use? I am new to macs, so I may need steps etc spelled out or broken down for me more than for the average mac owner, & don't want to screw anything up, I hope I have not by doing the software updates.
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just ran siftware update from 10.6.3 to 10.6.6
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Generally speaking, while there are lots of maintenance things you could do, and they make some people feel better, for the most part none of them are necessary if you're just using the computer for ordinary tasks and nothing is acting up.
If you want to feel like you're being proactive, you can make sure to always download the "combo" updater for 10.x.n OS updates (like the one you ran)--these contain all the files to update the OS from the base 10.x.0 version to whatever they are, and in a few rare cases applying one fixes things (or avoids problems) that the "delta" updaters don't. They're a much larger download, and you need to do it manually versus just running Software Update, but the one advantage is that if you keep the combo updater around and need to reinstall the OS for some reason, you can just run it again to bring you most of the way up to date.
The other easy maintenance task that requires no software installed is opening up Disk Utility in the Utilities folder and doing a "Repair Permissions" on your boot drive after installing software. If the software that's been installed doesn't get set up with the correct permissions (or something else screwed them up), this will fix it. Which in very rare circumstances can actually fix oddball problems, but unless you're messing with things you shouldn't be it's not generally all that important. You can do a "Verify Disk" on the boot drive while you're in there, too--that checks the disk structure to make sure it's ok. If it's not (rare, but it does happen), you'll need to boot using the OS install DVD or into single user mode to fix it, but that'll tell you if there's anything amiss without requiring a restart.
Several people will now proceed to explain in great detail why I'm wrong and you should be doing a lot more than this to keep things running smoothly, but for everyday use those things are enough to keep the dozen or so Macs I admin at work and my three home systems running well enough.
If you want to feel like you're being proactive, you can make sure to always download the "combo" updater for 10.x.n OS updates (like the one you ran)--these contain all the files to update the OS from the base 10.x.0 version to whatever they are, and in a few rare cases applying one fixes things (or avoids problems) that the "delta" updaters don't. They're a much larger download, and you need to do it manually versus just running Software Update, but the one advantage is that if you keep the combo updater around and need to reinstall the OS for some reason, you can just run it again to bring you most of the way up to date.
The other easy maintenance task that requires no software installed is opening up Disk Utility in the Utilities folder and doing a "Repair Permissions" on your boot drive after installing software. If the software that's been installed doesn't get set up with the correct permissions (or something else screwed them up), this will fix it. Which in very rare circumstances can actually fix oddball problems, but unless you're messing with things you shouldn't be it's not generally all that important. You can do a "Verify Disk" on the boot drive while you're in there, too--that checks the disk structure to make sure it's ok. If it's not (rare, but it does happen), you'll need to boot using the OS install DVD or into single user mode to fix it, but that'll tell you if there's anything amiss without requiring a restart.
Several people will now proceed to explain in great detail why I'm wrong and you should be doing a lot more than this to keep things running smoothly, but for everyday use those things are enough to keep the dozen or so Macs I admin at work and my three home systems running well enough.
There's really no maintenance that you need to to for your Mac to run efficiently. Some choose to use Onyx, but it's certainly not required to have a good-running Mac. Repairing permissions is only necessary if you have permissions-related problems.
Just relax and enjoy your Mac!
Good job on running Software Update. It is always safe and advisable to install all updates from Apple.
Now run it again. There should be several now that you have updated to 10.6.6. Java, Safari, iTunes to name a few.
Quit all open apps when running Software Update and don't do anything on the Mac until Software Update has finished.
Keeping your Mac up to date is the easiest way to keep it trouble free.
I concur with the previous posters.
Now run it again. There should be several now that you have updated to 10.6.6. Java, Safari, iTunes to name a few.
Quit all open apps when running Software Update and don't do anything on the Mac until Software Update has finished.
Keeping your Mac up to date is the easiest way to keep it trouble free.
I concur with the previous posters.
From the base update for the combo, do you mean that the combo installs all elements or items from previous updates?
After I ran the combo update, all the other updates you listed were also available, & also among these was a firmware update called EFI or something that had to do with use with external monitors, I installed this as well, & it said it was installed successfully, while this update was running, or during it, the mac beeped, the screen was white with the grey apple icon, with a little grey progress bar that filled up, then it went on & rebooted & everything went back to normal, with a brief rev up of the fans, then they went quiet again, then all was ok. Was this ok? it said this firmware update was installed successfully.
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Yes. So, for example, while the 10.6.6 delta updater may (depending on which one you get) only contain the files required to go from 10.6.5 to 10.6.6, the 10.6.6 combo update contains every 10.6.x update file, and is capable of updating any previous version of 10.6 to 10.6.6.
It's obviously not NECESSARY to run these, and literally millions of people go with what Software Update offers without issue. But, if you want to be paranoid (or, more reasonably, if you actually have some kind of problem after an OS update), downloading and running the combo updater will make sure that anything that got screwed up along the way gets replaced.
I tend to grab a combo updater to keep on the server at work, so that I can easily update any of the systems to the current point release if need be, and it's handy in the event of a reinstall. But that's on a 90Mbit Internet connection, where a 1GB download only takes a couple of minutes, and will get run by a dozen Macs. For the average user it's a pointlessly large download for no gain.
I went with the combo that software update offered; so when I went from 10.6.3 to 10.6.6, the update also installed 10.6.4, & 10.6.5, the 2 updates before as well?
I have heard that 10.6.7 will coming out soon, should I let software update find it & just install what it offers, as I said I am a bit new to mac os, so I assume the updater knows what it is doing. also, is it best to hold off on a new update for a short while to see if there are any bugs? what if it does not offer a combo updater but just 10.6.7?
I was told everything installed successfully, how will I know if I run into odd problems whether they are a result of the updates? & if they turn out to be as a result of the update, how do I fix it? This is one area windows seems to have covered with restore points, where one can make their computer go back to a previous state, I am not saying windows is better, I am comparing because I have come to mac as a long time windows user, I have just recently switched. does mac os have anything like this? So far I like mac os's fluidity, it seems simpler & more fluid.
Windows' restore point functionality is primarily there to mitigate the effects of "DLL hell", and provide a way to recover should you get stuck. In Mac OS X, on the other hand, this problem cannot happen due to different design choices.
Also, it's safe to do either method when updating the Mac OS: Installing the software update from Software Update, or grabbing a delta/combo updater from Apple's site. The advantage of the combo updater is that applying it will sometimes fix all sorts of odd issues with the OS itself that other methods will not - so I recommend downloading it regardless, and keeping it around in case you ever need it.
Yes. Regardless of what update method you use, you cannot get to 10.6.6 without getting the intervening updates. If you somehow managed to come up with the 10.6.5 to 10.6.6 delta updater, and tried to install it on a 10.6.3 system, it would refuse to run.
As said, for 99% of Mac users just running Software Update and letting it install whatever it finds is perfectly fine. Software Update will almost always offer you the delta updater--it's a MUCH smaller download--but that's not an issue. As an IT person, I wait a few days before installing 10.6.x updates at work, just to be safe, but I can only think of a couple of times there was ever a significant issue with a MacOS update of the sort, and in the event there is, Apple will release a patch (or a re-updater, in one case) to fix it.
Keep in mind here that "sometimes" is probably much less than 0.1% of the time--again, literally millions of people run Software Update without knowing or caring what a combo updater is, and almost all their computers run fine.
The only time you'd want to actively seek out the combo updater is if something specific is not working right after doing an update, which is pretty rare. And while it's true that the MacOS doesn't have any sort of rollback feature like Windows, you can always re-install the most recent combo updater as a troubleshooting measure if you really are having issues--that'll have the same effect as if you'd installed it to begin with.
Note, incidentally, that on the off chance you have some kind of major problem and need to reinstall the OS (exceedingly rare--I haven't needed to do that in years for any of the systems I admin, which is a far cry from the Windows boxes I care for) it is usually a MUCH smoother process than Windows. You rarely if ever have to reinstall any software, and its only real disadvantage is that it takes a couple of hours.
The bottom line, though, is not to get too worked up about problems you're not even having. The MacOS is generally stable, and its automatic update mechanism works well. If you do nothing but install whatever Software Update suggests when it suggests it, your system will almost certainly run just fine, and there's no need to worry about it unless something actually does go wrong, at which point you've got forums like these to ask for advice. (Aside: also keep in mind that this is a troubleshooting forum, so of COURSE you're going to see a lot of people asking about issues. If you take the number of posts here or on the Apple forums versus the number of Macs in active service, you'll get a very, very small percentage.)