OS X upgrade question

[MacNeXT]

I am going to upgrade a friends iBook from 10.2.8 to Panther. Normally, on my own system, I always do a clean install, just because it feels better and I have all my application CD's at hand anyway.

But in this case, there are a lot of applications installed, Adobe stuff, Classic environment and lots of other things. Not all CD's are at hand.

Assuming upgrading with keeping user documents an applications is possible (it is, isn't it?), what is the chance of problems with the upgrade procedure or with applications afterwards? What are your experiences?

 

[Darwin]

In upgrading I don't think there will be any major problems, as long as things like permissions are repaired then there should really be a problem

 

[varmit]

I believe and Archive Install would be best. It saves the User and Applications, while getting rid of the whole System. Then it installs the new Panther system. The other way is just upgrading, where just the certain files get replaced with what was upgraded from 10.2 to 10.3. The second way can cause problems, while the Archive Install usually comes out just fine. Then again, I would have the person look for the CDs to the software, because they should have it some where near by at all times.

 

[yellow]

I'm on the fence for this one.. while I prefer to do an A&I for this kind of thing, that can be very time intensive, and ultimately might not be worth the effort. For my own machines, I do the A&I, but lately, being lazy and overworked (a bad combo) I have started doing the upgrade option on Jagwire installs around the department. So far everything is working like a charm. Thank goodness.

One UTTER necessity, however.. Have all the account change their password. They can even change it to something temporarily and then change it back to the original. But if you don't change the passwords, then shadow hashing will never get turned on which is a much more secure way to store passwords.


End communication.