Archive and install newb question.

I had the same question a month ago, before I upgraded to Leopard. I did an Archive & Install and nope, you lose nothing.

In fact, when you Archive & Installs, all it does is it brings all your Tiger system files in a folder ("Previous Systems"), other than that, it keeps all your photos in your iPhoto libraries, your music in iTunes, your system preferences (some of them are changed because your Mac is now working with the Leopard system files), your apps, etc, etc. When you Archive & Install, everything is kept where it was before you left it, it just installs the whole new Leopard system files.

Hope this helps you! Good Leopard-ing ! xD

 

So if archive and install does basically nothing to your stuff- why does everyone pick upgrade? What's faster?

 

I dont think everyone picks upgrade. I never have. The reason behind an archive and install is to get a clean system. But if you upgrade, you basically "merge" two systems. Most of the older parts are deleted and replaced.

But the reason that an upgrade is an option, and the default one, is that some apps install support files outside the user directory and instead place them in the main library. One easy example is when you install a screen saver "for all users". Other items like Garageband place the music library in there also, in fact lots of iLife apps do. Now if you do an achieve ad install, you lose those support files. In some cases certain apps will rebuild them, but most not so those apps may have to be re-installed.

So an upgrade is the hassle free step. And archive is the possible "bug free" clean step.