Lightroom 3 Backup Disk

Making your own install disk from a downloaded update is tricky. If your download of LR3 is a stand-alone version that doesn't rely on LR2, you could burn the install package of a disk before you run it.

Backing up your entire HD is another option. Use either Time Machine or something like Carbon Copy Cloner to duplicate the contents of your drive after installing the new app. I use Carbon Copy Cloner. It creates a bootable copy of your HD, allowing you to start up from the backup drive in case of a crash. It saved my bacon when Lion crashed my pre-Unibody MBPro. I lost no files and didn't need to reinstall any apps.

Dale

 

i don't really understand your problem? Can you not just save the downloaded file somewhere on the computer, in case you need to reinstall?

As far as I recall, every time Adobe releases an LR update (be it a major step from LR2 to LR3, or even a point release of LR3 like 3.4 to 3.5), it is an entirely new download that does not need any prior LR to install. Even the LR2>LR3 update- you just download the whole LR3 program and enter in your serial number (I think it detects if it is an upgrade or a full-license serial # and asks you to put in the serial for LR2 also if it is an upgrade serial).

The whole program is less than a 100MB download. If you really want a physical disk, then simply burn the downloaded .dmg file to a CD and store it somewhere.

Backing up your entire system is a different matter, and as Dale suggests you can clone your disk or use Time Machine, etc.

Ruahrc

 

What I usually do is just put the DMG on a flash drive (or CD if you prefer those), and include a text file with the serial numbers. That way if you need to reinstall you have everything in one convenient place.