Clean install of ML, then transfer settings with MA. is that still clean enough?

funkyfresh69 said:

I have installed a copy of ML on a clean partition, rather than upgraded Lion. I then used migration assistant to migrate apps/settings from my Lion partition.

The question is, will that be no better than just upgrading Lion in-place? or does it fall half-way between an in-place upgrade of Lion and clean install of ML plus fresh install of apps?

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depends why you are doing a Clean install, if you feel there are files on the Lion partition that will effect the performance of ML than yes using the migration tool will bring those very same files over that your worried about in the first place

funkyfresh69 said:

Coming from a windows background, i would never upgrade an OS, always clean install.

Even if thats not so much of an issue with OS X, am i still potentially putting "cruft" back?

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personally i wouldnt worry about a clean install unless the upgraded doesn not feel like its working properlly

than when i did decide to do a clean install i would install everything from scratch not using a backup or time machine or migration

If you're doing a clean install anyway then I'd strongly recommend creating a separate partition for the OS and your files. Not exactly sure what the best way would be to do it if you're using migration assistant with regards to moving your user folder (since Migration Assistant seems to want to create a new user, not sync an existing one). But there are guides on how you can keep user folders on a different partition or drive.

Anyway, the point of doing it, or even getting a separate drive for the OS like an SSD if you can install it in your machine, is that then proper clean installs are easy since you don't need to touch your user files, so all you're restoring are the OS settings and applications which shouldn't take too long to redo fresh, and it should eliminate any performance issues.