To upgrade to Leopard... or to do a clean install?

[j-a-x]

Snow Leopard is going to be released soon, so I am trying to decide if I want to upgrade to Leopard or do a clean install. Upgrading is obviously simpler because I won't have to copy all of my files over, but I know with new OSes it's generally a good idea to do a clean install.

I've had my MacBook for about a year now, and it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to start from scratch with a new OS install when Snow Leopard is here. I have a Time Machine backup but I most likely would not do a full restore - I would instead just copy over my documents/apps/music/etc and re-install all of my apps.

I'd lose keychain passwords and safari password maybe but it might be a good idea despite the inconvenience.

What do you guys think?

 

[LurchNC]

Upgrading works just fine in my experience. OS X is organized a lot different than Windows. It seems to segregate itself from the rest of the system much better. Most people I have asked have agreed that on OS X there is no real need to do a clean install.

 

[j-a-x]

Interesting. I've heard very different stories, at least with older version of OSX. Any other thoughts?

 

[borcanm]

Nah, its better if you do a clean instal and then reinstall all your apps. Since you already have leopard, you can get the 29$ SL upgrade and do a clean install with that. But wait a little after its released to see what problems come out.

 

[j-a-x]

I don't care about problems! I'd rather just jump right into it!

anyways, yeah I'm definitely considering the clean install. Maybe I'll just do the upgrade, play with it for a few days, and then decide whether to do the clean install or not.

The only reason why i might not clean install is the fact that Snow Leopard is not as big of a release as 10.4 to 10.5. It's more of an improvement on 10.5 (it's still got Leopard in the title). Maybe it's similar enough to Leopard that a clean install isn't really necessary.

 

[Bill Gates]

I did an upgrade on my 20" iMac from Tiger to Leopard without any problems whatsoever.

 

[PurrBall]

Always clean install no matter what OS you're using. Upgrades leave cruft behind which is never a good thing (the last thing you want when troubleshooting some weird program error is to find it's because of weird stuff that happened because of an upgrade after spending hours troubleshooting)