Clean Install but keep Apps/iPhoto/iTunes etc?

[AndyR]

Recently got a new 2011 MBP to replace my aging 2008 MBP and love it so far. It came with Lion but during the initial setup I did the restore from Time Machine to get everything back and it worked fine.

However, recently I've noticed I get some freeze ups occasionally which never happened on my old MBP. I'm guessing it might be a legacy of something that got pulled over from my Time Machine backup, as my old MBP was sloooow but when I wiped it recently and put Lion on that fresh to sell it, it was super snappy, so I think something may have followed it over to my new laptop.

So, question is, is there a way to install Lion fresh and then instead of restoring my user accounts and data like I did before, just setup a new user then pull over what I need from Time Machine? Things like Mail/iCal/iTunes/iPhoto and my Apps etc? To see if that rules anything out performance wise?

Thx!

 

[SRLMJ23]

Not that I'm aware of. When you do a "Fresh Install" it wipes everything.

 

[Bear]

I would recommend clean installing every application instead of pulling it off of the Time Machine backup.

And yes you can pull individual files. When you first boot a fresh install it asks if you want to restore data from a TM Backup. You can see if the options there give you enough control.

Or after you have the system set up you can go in to Time Machine and restore selective files.

When I did a Snow Leopard to Lion doing a fresh install, I restored almost all my data from a Time Machine Backup. I did skip Applications and maybe one other thing from the selection.

 

[AndyR]

OK just to complete this thread I've not reinstalled from scratch and its made a massive improvement!!!!

I cloned my drive to an external with CCC and also did a final TimeMachine backup to my NAS. Then I installed Lion from my created USB stick and let it wipe the drive. Once it came up I let it get all the patches it wanted, then installed just the basic apps I use, set it up with iCloud to get all my calendar/contacts back and left mail pulling my mail down (IMAP). Dragged my iTunes and iPhoto libraries back from the cloned disks and that was that. Took me about 4hrs all in with the transfer time.

My Mac though is like night and day!!! Everything is super snappy making me wish I had done this before. Prior to this with iTunes/iPhoto/Chrome open I'd be sitting at 500mb free of ram (8GB total), but now its 5.5Gb free! Spotlight is also instant at searching where before it would sit there for upto 10 secs.

Super chuffed and easier than I thought! Have since blasted my time machine backup away too and started from scratch on that.