Don't do a clean install!!!

[killerrobot]

I was thinking a clean install was only necessary with good old windows - where some registry files just never get replaced or written over correctly sometimes. But alas, woe is me because I just the upgrade option and it decided to make my admin user just a regular user. So I couldn't even do software updates because it kept asking for an admin password. No way to fix it because I couldn't even log in as a root user because that was never enabled.
So, had to do a clean reinstall and create new users etc. - it only takes 30 minutes to open the system prefs and go through each one to change it to how you want it. Plus you see what has specifically changed (such as the allow all or block all firewall options). So, for me on any OS from now one its a clean install.

 

[thestaton]

hopefully it's not painful to read but I always do clean install.

 

[IJ Reilly]

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.

Junk, stuff, dust. Whatever it's called, this is far too vague a description of a perceived issue to be actionable. Anything you don't want should be thrown away explicitly. Blowing away the hard drive just so you can avoid making an informed decision on what to throw away or keep seems like folly to me.

Yes, OSX keeps receipts of installed applications -- but they don't have any function once the application is removed, so what's the problem?

 

[SilentPanda]

I gave examples. I installed MySql and had no clue what I was doing or where it ended up. It wasn't harming anything where it was probably and maybe it wasn't taking up a lot of space. If I reinstalled every time I installed something I didn't fully understand I'd reinstall at least once a month. A new OS release just seems like a good time to do this mass cleaning. At the time I was installing Ruby on Rails and ended up using incomplete instructions. No reason for me to hunt and peck for the files it installed... A reinstall with a new OS doesn't hurt. It's not something everybody should do or needs to do but that's why I do it.

 

[IJ Reilly]

A reinstall with a new OS doesn't hurt. It's not something everybody should do or needs to do but that's why I do it.

Well it certainly can hurt, but I take your second point, which is where I'm going with my argument. I don't want inexperienced Mac users (the ones who really can be harmed) to think that clean installs are the way upgrades should be done on the Mac. Whenever I hear someone ask, "I want to do a clean install but I don't know how to ____" (which around here is often), I think, and frequently ask, "Where did you get the idea that a clean install is necessary?" Most of the time, it really isn't needed or appropriate.

 

[yg17]

If you back up your stuff, then there's nothing to worry about. If you click the "erase hard drive" button and then confirm it when the dialog pops up and says "all your crap's gonna be gone soon, continue?" (or whatever it says) without backing up, then perhaps you're too dumb to be using a computer 😉

 

[roland.g]

Well it certainly can hurt, but I take your second point, which is where I'm going with my argument. I don't want inexperienced Mac users (the ones who really can be harmed) to think that clean installs are the way upgrades should be done on the Mac. Whenever I hear someone ask, "I want to do a clean install but I don't know how to ____" (which around here is often), I think, and frequently ask, "Where did you get the idea that a clean install is necessary?" Most of the time, it really isn't needed or appropriate.

Point made, unless you are well versed enough to back all the important things up. And then after the install install apps, libraries, all those things, it really really really isn't worth the hassle.

 

[MikeTheC]

Well, not that I'm switching to Leopard myself or anything, but I have to utterly disagree with the OP's comments.

My experiences with both Mac OS X and Classic Mac OS suggest a clean, fresh, nuke-n-pave install is the "best practices" approach in all but a few exceptional cases. IF I were going to put Leopard on my computers (which assumes I had computer(s) to put them on) I would do it only one way -- a clean install.

I don't want ANYTHING to potentially undermine the newly-installed OS, and frankly many long years at this game has taught me one thing:

Don't fight battles you don't need to fight.

And so I refuse to take the lazy man's out and install one OS over top of another installation.

 

[Phil A.]

I did an erase and install on my Mac Pro because I've installed and uninstalled a lot of apps over the last year or so I've had the machine and wanted to tidy things up anyway. My MacBook Pro is a lot "cleaner" so I just did an upgrade and both worked fine.

 

[xfusejc]

I did an Upgrade on my iMac and a clean install on my MacBook, and I had sluggish issues with the iMac right out of the gate. I ended up doing a clean install on the iMac. Best decision, really.

 

[IJ Reilly]

And so I refuse to take the lazy man's out and install one OS over top of another installation.

Ha. Good one. I've been accused of being lazy for using the Mac instead of a PC. So... guilty as charged.

New Mac users beware. Some people think you aren't having a good time unless it hurts.

 

[Stephenbw]

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.

I completely agree, but I would guess that it is only a minority of Mac users that visit Forums like this. The majority of the 2 million+ new Leopard users will have simply followed the onscreen instructions and 'Upgraded'. I did🙂

 

[MBHockey]

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.

What a completely useless post. This is not your blog.

 

[pocketrockets]

Upgrading to Leopard only overwrites Tiger and leaves Tiger files on the computer? Tell me, what files are those.

 

[lord patton]

I did an Upgrade on my iMac and a clean install on my MacBook, and I had sluggish issues with the iMac right out of the gate. I ended up doing a clean install on the iMac. Best decision, really.

You see, I think cases like these are the only real data we have: "Tried upgrade, so-so results, clean install did the trick."

I'm going to find out myself here, real soon. I did the simple upgrade on my PowerBook ("after all" I said to myself, "this is why I switched to a Mac") and have had some issues:

Preview.app not functioning.
iPhoto '05 won't email pictures (or send pictures to Mail.app... you know what I mean).
GarageBand '05 displaying tracks or not, GUI acting funny.

Are these problems related to a clean install v. not? Well, of course I can't say definitively, but I've read enough people talk about similar situations where clean installs fixed hard-to-pin-down erratic behavior, that I'm sure it is a good step to take, at least sometimes.

 

[JesterJJZ]

If a clean instal on Mac was anything like doing it on Windows then I could understand. You can perform a clean install on a Mac in about 20 minutes. Takes hours on a PC...probably more since you'll have problems. 😉

 

[iDave]

You can perform a clean install on a Mac in about 20 minutes.

Yeah right, plus the hours or days it takes to get all of your applications reinstalled, preferences back to normal, data in place, etc., etc. It is definitely not as easy as you make it sound.

I did the easy upgrade on two Macs this evening. Took about 35 minutes apiece. Everything is in its place on both, no apps to reinstall, very few preferences to mess with. Everything is running just fine so far. Saved myself a LOT of work over the clean (erase and) install.

If one tweaks their system a lot, as perhaps you do, a clean install is probably best. I agree with the OP that it's usually unnecessary. For the rest of us 1.95 million (so far) or so, a simple upgrade works fine. Typical Mac users would be ill advised to even attempt an erase and install. This is why I'm responding to your "20 minutes" comment.

The Mac OS X installer program is designed to remove stuff which needs to be removed in the process of the upgrade. It is only prior system tweaks performed by the user which interfere with the upgrade installation in a few cases.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I completely agree, but I would guess that it is only a minority of Mac users that visit Forums like this. The majority of the 2 million+ new Leopard users will have simply followed the onscreen instructions and 'Upgraded'. I did🙂

I'd like to say you're right, but I'm not so certain. I once had a tech support person at Apple suggest a clean install to cure kernel panics, which interestingly enough started right after I upgraded the OS. Fortunately I did not take this advise. The cause turned out to be bad RAM.

 

[EricNau]

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.

This computer was my first mac, and for the first few months at least, I was still a stupid Windows user; I hadn't a clue what I was doing.

There's so much junk on that computer that it's far easier to back everything up, erase, and restore everything I need. ...If I find that something's missing, my backups are only a few feet away.

 

[nix.hanno]

Being a fan of clean installs (coming from a Microsoft world - i.e. abused since childhood), I feel that I should mention:

1. A clean install of Mac OS X will NOT ALLOW you to make SSL connections between Entourage and Exchange - whereas,
2. An upgrade (in most cases) will NOT BREAK this functionality...

APPLE/MICROSOFT - Do the world a favour and test your products carefully!

 

[IJ Reilly]

This computer was my first mac, and for the first few months at least, I was still a stupid Windows user; I hadn't a clue what I was doing.

There's so much junk on that computer that it's far easier to back everything up, erase, and restore everything I need. ...If I find that something's missing, my backups are only a few feet away.

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand how this method is "far easier" than simply clicking "upgrade," and leaving everything where you put it originally. For one thing, that backup now becomes your only source for files you might need again someday. How long are you planning on keeping it? From personal experience, I know that the only files that I have ever lost over the years were ones I deleted after I thought I'd archived them.

 

[dan3L]

clean the junk

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?

This "junk" thing seems to be a windoze analog. Where does junk live? Library,
caches?... where?

 

[iDave]

If it was EricNau's first Mac, and there were applications everywhere, documents everywhere, System items missing, and no sense of how things are organized, it would make sense to do an erase and install after a backup. After this you could pay careful attention to restoring documents and files where they belong and do a fresh install of applications.

It is true, after all, that if your applications aren't in the Applications Folder they will not be properly upgraded. There are some cases where a clean install is warranted.

 

[QuarterSwede]

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.

That's a load in my experience. At first I did an upgrade on my PowerBook (took ~2hours). What I got was a buggy OS (system preferences wouldn't show me the full Spaces window, regular Apple apps would crash constiently, etc.) so I decided to do an Erase & Install (took ~30 min) since I had the mind to do a Tiger CCC backup to my external before attempting the upgrade. After the Erase & Install I used the setup assistant to migrate all my data back to the Leopard install (took about ~2 hours since it was only USB 2.0 and not FireWire). I am more than pleased with the result. All my data is exactly where I left it and all my settings (even extra preference panes, iTunes & iPhoto ratings, etc are all in place. It's as if I did an Upgrade only without all the bugs that I had experienced. Oh and it is noticeabley faster than the Upgrade was.

So don't tell me you won't notice a differece!

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.

Not in my case. Setup Assistant worked perfectly and restored everything exactly as it was.

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?

That worked perfectly for me. All my settings, ratings, etc are exactly as they were in Tiger.

Yeah right, plus the hours or days it takes to get all of your applications reinstalled, preferences back to normal, data in place, etc., etc. It is definitely not as easy as you make it sound.

It was exactly that easy for me.

I did the easy upgrade on two Macs this evening. Took about 35 minutes apiece. Everything is in its place on both, no apps to reinstall, very few preferences to mess with. Everything is running just fine so far.

I did an Upgrade on my PowerBook and my wife's relatively new MacBook and they both took 2 hours to complete. Her's ended up working fine, mine on the other hand, was a the buggy mess I mentioned above.

For the rest of us 1.95 million (so far) or so, a simple upgrade works fine. Typical Mac users would be ill advised to even attempt an erase and install.

This may be true, but I am in no way an OS X tweaker. I hate Usanity's APE apps and don't use them and I generally like the way OS X performs and I still got a lot of bugs after Upgrading that simply weren't there after I did the Erase & Install.

 

[EricNau]

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand how this method is "far easier" than simply clicking "upgrade," and leaving everything where you put it originally. For one thing, that backup now becomes your only source for files you might need again someday. How long are you planning on keeping it? From personal experience, I know that the only files that I have ever lost over the years were ones I deleted after I thought I'd archived them.

Possibly, but I'm quite certain that everything irreplaceable is in my music, photos, movies, and documents folders (possibly my library folder as well).

I'll also be cloning the drive to my external before the erase, along with DVD backups for the files I know I need.

If it was EricNau's first Mac, and there were applications everywhere, documents everywhere, System items missing, and no sense of how things are organized, it would make sense to do an erase and install after a backup. After this you could pay careful attention to restoring documents and files where they belong and do a fresh install of applications.

That sounds about right. 😀
...Did I mention that I even have AOL installed? 😱 😛