Tiger Installation Tips and Issues

[mowogg]

As many folks are getting Tiger today, maybe we can all share some issues with the install.
One of the few that I have seen in other posts is that Virex is not compatible, and should be removed. Someone recommended using Spotlight to find all Virex and Vshield files and trashing them.
Anybody else have any tips? Anyone have any major incompatibilities?

 

[powerbook911]

I was surprised how fast my installation was.

I did archive and install, 15 minutes I was running, and 10 minutes later spotlight had finished indexing. Very impressive.

 

[DavidLeblond]

I have a question... this is the first time I've had to upgrade Mac OS X... before I used Windows and I always did an upgrade, not a format and install.

However when I bought an iBook, I foolishly thought "40 gb is enough for me" so now my hard drive is filling up... mostly with useless programs... so I thought this time I will do a clean install (I have an external hard drive to back up all my junk)

My question is, can I still preserve all my email from Mail.app? Does it have any way to import from an older version? And if I do an Archive and Install, can I archive it off to my external firewire? I'm still not 100% sure what the difference between doing a clean install and doing the Archive and Install is.

 

[Daveway]

I used the "upgrade" feature. It took a total 20 minutes maybe and Spotlight took 15 minutes to index. No issues with the installation.

 

[bigdz68]

Instead of starting a new thread...instead of going thru all my folders and files for backup...Can I just copy the 3 Mounted Volumes on my desktop to my external firewire drive? That way I will have Panther on backup if necessary? I have a clean 500GB external LaCie so space wont be a problem....just curious since it sounds to easy

 

[mowogg]

Back Up

I have a question... this is the first time I've had to upgrade Mac OS X... before I used Windows and I always did an upgrade, not a format and install.

However when I bought an iBook, I foolishly thought "40 gb is enough for me" so now my hard drive is filling up... mostly with useless programs... so I thought this time I will do a clean install (I have an external hard drive to back up all my junk)

My question is, can I still preserve all my email from Mail.app? Does it have any way to import from an older version? And if I do an Archive and Install, can I archive it off to my external firewire? I'm still not 100% sure what the difference between doing a clean install and doing the Archive and Install is.

Doing a clean install will wipe everything off of your hard drive. If you haven't copied or moved it to another drive or DVD/CD it will be gone the way of Elvis.
Archive and install backs up all of your home files into a folder and then does a clean install. It does NOT format your hard drive so any directory issues you might have will go un-fixed. You will have to move your home files from the back up folder to your new home folder. Any apps you might have had will have to be re-installed.
Upgrade replaces/adds to your Panther system and is the easiest/least stable (if you have existing problems) of the options.
I had a nice, stable machien so I just did an upgrade and everything went fine.
I did do a back up of all of my iPhoto image and purchased iTunes music and other files to DVD using Backup. I also copied my Mail.app mail boxes and Entourage identities to a CD as backup.
Mail is in your home folder/library/mail. Entourage is in your documents folder /ms office/main identity (i Think).

Hope that helps.

 

[mkrishnan]

It does NOT format your hard drive so any directory issues you might have will go un-fixed.

Mowogg, what do you mean by "directory issues?" Archive and Install, as I understand, moves *everything* on your boot HD to the previous systems folder. So it creates the directory structure for the new OS install from scratch. Or do you mean HD low-level issues like bad sectors, etc?

 

[mowogg]

Mowogg, what do you mean by "directory issues?" Archive and Install, as I understand, moves *everything* on your boot HD to the previous systems folder. So it creates the directory structure for the new OS install from scratch. Or do you mean HD low-level issues like bad sectors, etc?

Sorry, I meant low-level issues. Tiger also debuts a new file format (case-sensitive HFS+ or something like that) which would be an option with a clean install, but not with an archive or upgrade.

I'd say if you're not having issues with your Panther set up, back up your important files to your external drive, run disk utility and then upgrade.

 

[mkrishnan]

Tiger also debuts a new file format (case-sensitive HFS+ or something like that) which would be an option with a clean install, but not with an archive or upgrade.

Thanks! I googled this, and found that it was available on Panther Server, and now I guess on Tiger standard. But...why, God, why? I guess to offer Unix compatibility? But why would you want to do this to yourself?

 

[emw]

Alright, time to show what a moron I am. If I do a clean install of Tiger, do I somehow need to deauthorize iTunes, copy the library, then reauthorize? What the hell is deauthorize anyway?

 

[mowogg]

Alright, time to show what a moron I am. If I do a clean install of Tiger, do I somehow need to deauthorize iTunes, copy the library, then reauthorize? What the hell is deauthorize anyway?

That's a good question. I would think that the answer would be no, but I'm not sure so I would deauthorize it anyway.
I think the iTunes Store authorization is based on the machine serial number, which is sent to Apple. If you re-do the OS the serial number will remain the same. This would also prevent people from cloning their OS from one machine to another to have multiple authorizations.

I backed up all my purchased music before upgrading to Tiger, just in case, but I haven't tried making a purchase from iTunes since the upgrade and I can't test it until I get home tonight.

Hope this helps

 

[mowogg]

Thanks! I googled this, and found that it was available on Panther Server, and now I guess on Tiger standard. But...why, God, why? I guess to offer Unix compatibility? But why would you want to do this to yourself?

I skimmed the article on Tiger in Ars Tech and he made mention of this new format. It was way over my head so I can't explain it, but that's a good place to get the background.

Rob-

 

[rinseout]

Tiger also debuts a new file format (case-sensitive HFS+ or something like that) which would be an option with a clean install, but not with an archive or upgrade.

I'm pretty sure this is not right (correct me if i'm wrong). From the Ars Technica article :

As foreshadowed in March of 2004, an unmodified HFS+ volume does indeed have the ability to store an arbitrary number of attributes. The xattr APIs in Tiger (finally) leverage this ability. No new volume format has been introduced, and no reformatting is required.

(emphasis added). This is good news, since I was really dreading having to reformat and set things up again. I think "update" is what i'll go for...

 

[andyblac]

Thanks! I googled this, and found that it was available on Panther Server, and now I guess on Tiger standard. But...why, God, why? I guess to offer Unix compatibility? But why would you want to do this to yourself?

if i where you i would NOT use this as your boot partition as some applications do not work, i tried this today with my first install of Tiger, tomorrow i am going to have to reformat my boot partition using normal HFS+, becuase several of my apps no longer work, if i copy them to my external HD (which is HFS+) they work fine.