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Don't do a clean install!!!

P

pocketrockets

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 24, 2006
74
0
What's the point of doing a clean install if you want your things to stay exactly the same. There's really no point. It being safer? In your dreams. If you're gonna get bugs, it won't matter whether you clean installed or upgraded. A clean install is only a long detour. Updating will get you from point A to B the fastest while doing the least amount of work and worrying.

I think people who convince others to do a "clean install" would rather complicate things for others to make themselves feel smart.

Take this from an average computer user who recently upgraded.

EDIT: You may have to uninstall Unsanity (very few will have this problem), but that's only 1 step.
 
We've gone through this every day since Leopard was announced. If you want to upgrade, fine. If you want to do a clean install, fine. I did a clean install and couldn't be happier, and will continue doing clean installs every time I perform a major OS upgrade. There's no point in arguing this. You keep doing your upgrades, I'll keep doing my clean installs. You won't change my opinion and I won't change yours.

[/thread]
 
Leopard family pack installed over Tiger. So with the hope of not confusing folks further, I just installed Leopard on 4 different macs, a new Mac Mini and iMac 2.4 GHz both just about 1 month old, and on an Intel C2D MacBook Pro 15" that is 8 months old and a iMac G5 that is 2 years old. I did not do a clean install, but just upgraded using the most simple path outlined by the software. I did back up my key files, but in all cases everything went smoothly. The software is a tad bit slow and some of the blue colored screens scared me (BSOD?) but nothing hung up and now I'm at full leopard status.

Now if I can just get my new install of Boot Camp to be nice to my new install of VMware Fusion, I will be totally happy.

YMMV, so caveat emptor.
:)
 
I did archive install on my iMac, and clean on my Powerbook.

Equally happy with both results.
 
I agree with the OP. I used to do clean installs. It's a lot of work. For the move to 10.3 and 10.4 I just did the simple upgrade and have had no problems. I plan to do the same with Leopard.

I'm not one to make system modifications. If you are, a clean install is likely safer. You never know if your prior modifications might interfere with the upgrade.

For my own purposes, I figure I can always do a clean install later if something goes wrong with the standard upgrade, as long as I've backed up.
 
OK...my Macbook is literally months old with hardly any software on it.

Upgraded - upgrade install went great. Boot up time went out to 2-3 minutes!! With a long pause on a blue screen prior to desktop being displayed. Everytime!

So thought - what the hell - I am not losing anything - and I am not wasting time debugging - so installed as a clean install - now boots perfectly.

Go figure.
 
EricNau said:
I'll be doing an erase and install.

It's the perfect opportunity to do some "spring cleaning."
Click to expand...

This concept seriously terrifies me. It's disruptive enough to have to adapt to a changing OS -- sufficiently so that for me, I'll be waiting for a break when my work isn't so demanding to upgrade to Leopard. Then, to add deliberately to this disruption the worry that you might have "spring cleaned" something you need out of existence? Terrifying!

Really, I'd rather take a bath in warm acid. Or switch to Windows.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Really, I'd rather take a bath in warm acid.
Click to expand...
Agreed. When I've done a clean install, it's weeks or months before I get my system back to where it was before. There are just too many software installs and tweaks that need to be made to a clean system. Nearly every day for weeks, you'll run into something that you have to "fix" for 10 minutes before you can do a simple task. It's not worth it, in my opinion.
 
What about doing a clean install and then using the Migration Assistant from another drive? Isn't there still a benefit compared to Upgrade or does that defeat the purpose of the clean install?
 
A clean install allows you to clear the garbage that you dont need on your computer, I always either back up and do a clean install or do the archive install. Both are better than upgrade IMO.
 
It's true that a clean install will make your computer run slightly faster by getting rid of the junk. But for the average user, what's the point of a faster computer if it's missing files and possibly applications. If one has a computer perfectly running Tiger and just wants to upgrade, than the upgrade is the better option. Its ALWAYS possible to do "spring cleaning" after an upgrade. It's just the opposite of a clean install (you're deleting the bad files, vs adding the good files). It's quicker too.

Clean install -----------------------> Where you want to be. <----Upgrade
 
iDave said:
Agreed. When I've done a clean install, it's weeks or months before I get my system back to where it was before.
Click to expand...

In the past, I had this same problem. However, I have become better at maintaining, updating, and installing things to my satisfaction each time I've done it. This time around, I did a clean install with Leopard, and got everything up and running just the way I want it (at least 95%) in less than 24 hours. It's a matter of keeping your files organized, knowing what software you're actually going to use, and where to find the discs and/or websites so you can install it, and knowing which library items you're going to need to migrate. I actually shocked by how little effort it was to do a clean install this time around.
 
Call me strange... but I really enjoy wiping a system clean and rebuilding everything from scratch. I like the process of doing it, and I like the fresh start.

It doesn't take long to get back up and running. In my case, all I needed was:

  • CD/DVD install discs for software I purchased (or my serial number for the ones purchased online).
  • Safari bookmarks (copied over into Leopard from a backup I had previously made of my user folder)
  • Mail ".mbox" files to import my old email (again, stored on an external backup drive)
  • iPhoto/Aperture libraries (copied over from external backup)
  • all of my documents (hey, that's on the external backup drive too...)

I guess what I'm trying to say is, as long as you have a complete backup of your user folder - it's fairly simple to get everything copied back into it's right place. Most applications don't require much setup... so, all those preferences/other files you think you might need, you probably don't (but have them backed up just in case.).
 
I did on upgrade to begit with any everything was alright there were some niggling issuses that I thought a erase and install would sort out. Alas it didn't but in the process i gained a whopping 10 GBs of disk space. So i'm happy.

Plus i feel that i learnt more things about the system in the process.
 
I don't see a problem with either way. I prefer the clean install method. I usually do a complete backup of my main drive to an external then a clean install. It frees up a bit of disk space. There are often times a bunch of programs on my machine I never use anymore or things I've been meaning to get rid of. Just like it's easier to throw things out when you move in real life, it's easier to get rid of stuff when you "move" to a new OS. If I find I've forgotten something I always have the full bootable disk image. Also if there are issues I can safely know it's the OS and not some random thing I've installed.
 
I keep hearing about all this "junk" which accumulates and needs to be wiped out in clean installs, but I've never seen a description of what kind of "junk" this is -- and it's not for lack of asking. And it has never to my knowledge been demonstrated objectively that a new clean-installed Mac performs any faster than a properly maintained upgraded Mac. Is this fact or folklore?
 
I also did a clean install.

My PowerBook is 4 years old. It started with Panther and then received an in-place upgrade to Tiger, which I might say really fouled up the stability of some apps.

After 4 years of slowly accumulating crapware (lots of little doo-dahs I never used twice) and a nearly full 80 GB hard drive, I had absolutely no intention of doing an in-place upgrade again.

This was time for a house cleaning (or spring cleaning or whatever). So what that it takes a little extra time?

I'm very glad I did this. I safely copied all documents to an external HD and reinstalled the 'good apps.' In the process I recovered 40 GB!!

I have a streamlined system now, plenty of disk space, and the assurance that all crapware and undeleted files in various system folders are gone.

Edit: I also reformatted the HD as "HFS+, Journaled, Case Sensitive" -- because my Linux installations at work are all case sensitive. This preserves consistency between home and office.
 
It's not junk that makes the system run slower. It's junk that takes up hard drive space here and there. For all I know it amounts to 1 MB total. It's from when I install a program then remove it. I don't use AppZapper or the like as some do. There's (I believe) receipts from all the old software updates and possibly even the patches themselves in pkg form on your machine. The botched MySQL install that has random files sitting on my system I don't remember where they are.... etc.

It's more about cleaning out the dust than throwing stuff away.
 
Top on is always (erase and install Leopard) but is Tiger on 10.4.10. Not totally fair but this is the generally case. And I still haven't slimed it down like on the Tiger install.

Users/Library
Picture 2.png

/Library
Picture 4.png

/Applicaitions - due to a slight change in how i have done things this has an extra 500MBs that was stored elsewhere in Tiger
Picture 5.png
 
I have been wondering as well. Planned originally on doing the archive and install vs. the clean. Now I am considering the clean but need a drive first for the process. My current external doesn't have the room for a backup. I won't do an upgrade, would rather have old system folders to dump than a merged version. But I'm still open to hearing the benefits.
 
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