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"clean install" of Snow Leopard Upgrade for $9.99

H

HiFiGuy528

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 24, 2008
1,876
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Question on "clean install" of Snow Loepard. Since I an eligible for Snow Leopard "upgrade" for $9.99. Am I getting a full version for a clean install or do I have to reinstall Leopard first and then pop the "upgrade" Snow Leopard DVD in?

Also, Can I install Snow Leopard "upgrade" on my other Macs without buying a Family Pack? All the Macs are under my name.
 
Legally speaking on the second question, I'm pretty sure you'd be required to buy the family pack. That said, Apple has thus far been wonderfully nice about copy protection--meaning there is NONE on the home OS (Server has a serial #)--so unless things change significantly with Snow Leopard you will probably be able to.

As for the first question, I don't think anybody knows for certain yet. Apple has traditionally used the "upgrade only" OS install discs as CPU drop-ins, meaning they get tossed into the box of Macs preinstalled with the earlier OS--this lets Apple (and other retailers) clear stock of old models with nothing but an extra DVD tossed in the box. Apple has never sold these upgrade only discs separately to this point, however--anything you bought on its own was a full install (even, I'm pretty sure, the up-to-date discs).

I would say, though, that it's VERY likely they'll be full install discs. Certainly, they'd have to at least accept 10.4 installs, since someone could be buying Snow Leopard for an early 10.4 Mac that they'd never upgraded to 10.5, and I don't think Apple wants to bother making that small group of people buy a copy of 10.5 as well as a 10.6 upgrade. Given the relatively narrow range of machines it can be installed on I don't see Apple bothering with any sort of check.
 
DjAmTraX said:
Also, Can I install Snow Leopard "upgrade" on my other Macs without buying a Family Pack? All the Macs are under my name.
Click to expand...

No. That 9.99 disc is going to be unique for your machine. The up-to-date discs will work on your model of mac and only your model.

Presumably the normal 29 Snow leopard discs will be full versions, but that has not been announced so we don't really know for sure how they will work.
 
Makosuke said:
I would say, though, that it's VERY likely they'll be full install discs. Certainly, they'd have to at least accept 10.4 installs, since someone could be buying Snow Leopard for an early 10.4 Mac that they'd never upgraded to 10.5, and I don't think Apple wants to bother making that small group of people buy a copy of 10.5 as well as a 10.6 upgrade. Given the relatively narrow range of machines it can be installed on I don't see Apple bothering with any sort of check.
Click to expand...

Apple made an announcement that Snow Leopard update will only work with Leopard 10.5 so Leopard 10.4 users would have to buy 10.5
 
surflordca said:
Apple made an announcement that Snow Leopard update will only work with Leopard 10.5 so Leopard 10.4 users would have to buy 10.5
Click to expand...
Ahh, I stand completely corrected. I either missed that part of the announcement or selectively edited it from my memory.

Though I still wouldn't be entirely surprised if the install discs didn't look for a 10.5 installation. Or at least I wish they wouldn't, since that greatly simplifies drive swap reinstalls.
 
You can, I got my up-to-date disk.

The install procedure doesn't exactly make it obvious though. It installs when you're still in your current OS, without the option to clean install. So I simply rebooted my machine, held down the C button to boot from the disk. Then I opened Disk Utility, erased my drive and installed Snow Leopard and it worked.

pdjudd said:
No. That 9.99 disc is going to be unique for your machine. The up-to-date discs will work on your model of mac and only your model.
Click to expand...


That is not true.
 
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