distinguish if Lion was a clean install or upgraded from SL

[cariocap]

Hi all,

Is it possible to distinguish if Lion was installed from a clean install or upgraded from SL ?

If yes, how ?

I have a MacBook Pro "Core i7" 2.4 17" 8Gb RAM Late 2011 and I know that the rules says that it comes from factory with Lion but I'm not satisfied with the performance since the beginning of this super/ultra machine (my desktop Athlon 2.8 with 4Gb RAM running Ubuntu 10.10 is faster...). It acts like if it had SL and was upgraded to Lion. I have read a lot of performance problems reports when upgrading instead of clean install.

thanks,

 

[robgendreau]

You could do a ton of research and hope to find a file or files that would remain on a machine after a Lion installation on a machine that previously had SL vs. a machine that just has Lion; I would think that even with a machine that has a bare SL install with no user folder might leave something behind with the Lion install. And of course you could use file recovery tools to see if SL files are still there since a Lion install might not overwrite everything (although I would expect a factory Lion install would just clone drives, not install since it would be faster).

But…so what? Most problems involving the Lion upgrade have to do with issues of older software, which was never installed on your computer, and with problems inherent to Lion itself.

 

[Simplicated]

It's actually very easy. Go to System Preferences -> Desktop & Screen Saver, make sure you are in the Desktop tab, and if you find folders named Nature, Plants, Art, Black & White, Abstract and Patterns in the source list, the system is upgraded from Snow Leopard.

A clean install of Lion does not include these desktop pictures.

 

[bill-p]

Hi all,

Is it possible to distinguish if Lion was installed from a clean install or upgraded from SL ?

If yes, how ?

I have a MacBook Pro "Core i7" 2.4 17" 8Gb RAM Late 2011 and I know that the rules says that it comes from factory with Lion but I'm not satisfied with the performance since the beginning of this super/ultra machine (my desktop Athlon 2.8 with 4Gb RAM running Ubuntu 10.10 is faster...). It acts like if it had SL and was upgraded to Lion. I have read a lot of performance problems reports when upgrading instead of clean install.

thanks,

Specifically... what is causing you performance problems? "Performance problems" is very generic, and I don't think that's enough information to go with here to determine whether you are actually having a problem or not.

 

[cariocap]

It's actually very easy. Go to System Preferences -> Desktop & Screen Saver, make sure you are in the Desktop tab, and if you find folders named Nature, Plants, Art, Black & White, Abstract and Patterns in the source list, the system is upgraded from Snow Leopard.

A clean install of Lion does not include these desktop pictures.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

There is no such folders, so this isn't an SL upgrade to Lion.

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when I said performance problems I was talking about how Lion is slow, my wife has a Macbook White 2008 with SL and I think it's faster.

Do you know the feeling when we buy a new computer and says "wow that's fast" ?

I haven't had such feeling since the first time I powered on my Macbook.

How could it be slow if it's one of the topest Macbook ?

You could do a ton of research and hope to find a file or files that would remain on a machine after a Lion installation on a machine that previously had SL vs. a machine that just has Lion; I would think that even with a machine that has a bare SL install with no user folder might leave something behind with the Lion install. And of course you could use file recovery tools to see if SL files are still there since a Lion install might not overwrite everything (although I would expect a factory Lion install would just clone drives, not install since it would be faster).

But…so what? Most problems involving the Lion upgrade have to do with issues of older software, which was never installed on your computer, and with problems inherent to Lion itself.

About cloning.
Maybe the image used to clone has problems that cause Lion to run slow.
Do you think that a clean install could help me ?

Thanks

 

[bill-p]

when I said performance problems I was talking about how Lion is slow, my wife has a Macbook White 2008 with SL and I think it's faster.

Do you know the feeling when we buy a new computer and says "wow that's fast" ?

I haven't had such feeling since the first time I powered on my Macbook.

How could it be slow if it's one of the topest Macbook ?

Well, what I mean is... do you have specific examples? Like your wife's Macbook on SL takes 1 second to open Safari but your Macbook on Lion takes 10 seconds to open Safari...?

It's really hard to see what is slow based on your description if all it is is "slow".

I'm not nitpicking. I ran into troubles with Lion myself with the only remedy being to purchase a new Macbook altogether. But... there were things I was able to solve, and there were a few other things that were there by design.

 

[cariocap]

Hi bill-p,

Thanks for your time trying to help me.

I decided to do a clean install of Lion and now I have a fast computer. I don`t know what was the problem.

Thanks

 

[KnightWRX]

It acts like if it had SL and was upgraded to Lion. I have read a lot of performance problems reports when upgrading instead of clean install.

I upgraded Snow Leopard to Lion and have had no performance issues whatsoever.

Your machine came with Lion in the box ? It never saw Snow Leopard, it was imaged from an imaging server straight to Lion. Fix your issue rather than being paranoid about how it was installed.

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Do you know the feeling when we buy a new computer and says "wow that's fast" ?

I frankly haven't had that feeling since about 1998. Computers these days are just so damn "fast" that using a desktop hasn't been faster for years. Computers are just idling, waiting for input.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

It's actually very easy. Go to System Preferences -> Desktop & Screen Saver, make sure you are in the Desktop tab, and if you find folders named Nature, Plants, Art, Black & White, Abstract and Patterns in the source list, the system is upgraded from Snow Leopard.

A clean install of Lion does not include these desktop pictures.

These folders? I didn't know that. I can delete these?

 

[cariocap]

Your machine came with Lion in the box ? It never saw Snow Leopard, it was imaged from an imaging server straight to Lion. Fix your issue rather than being paranoid about how it was installed.

Yes came with Lion, and it was slow since the first time I powered on the MBP.
So do you think that's me that need to fix or Apple need to fix ? I just powered on...

I'm not paranoid, I'm just curious to know if my MBP was an upgrade from SL or not that would explain why Lion was so slow.

Thanks

 

[KnightWRX]

Yes came with Lion, and it was slow since the first time I powered on the MBP.
So do you think that's me that need to fix or Apple need to fix ? I just powered on...

Apple could have fixed it if you asked them.

I'm not paranoid, I'm just curious to know if my MBP was an upgrade from SL or not that would explain why Lion was so slow.

How would that explains why Lion was so slow ? Upgrading from Snow Leopard does not make Lion slow.