Alright thanks for the help mrapplegateu r awesome!!!
K3V1Nbot
Your welcome. Good luck when the time comes.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Upgrading from Lion DP 4 to Retail Lion
- Thread starter K3V1Nbot
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Your welcome. Good luck when the time comes.
Will it be possible to do a Time Machine backup of Dp4 then restore all of those files via TM to the Lion release version?
A TM restore from DP4 would restore old elements, so should not be used if you install the retail version when it is released. You would need to clone your DP4 drive, and pull any needed data from that after a retail version of Lion is installed. Or at least use the migration assistant. This will ensure you don't have old system files.
This is my first time with a DP, so i'm not sure if this could be possible:
DP's are for developers, and the retail version for developers is GM. Then the way to update to the final commercial version is to install the GM, isn't it?
GM and retail are the same? We will be able to get future updates of the OS, or just developer updates?
DP's are for developers, and the retail version for developers is GM. Then the way to update to the final commercial version is to install the GM, isn't it?
GM and retail are the same? We will be able to get future updates of the OS, or just developer updates?
A clean install is the only clean solution. You should have your OS and your data on different partitions. It makes OS upgrades much less painful.
Not really. The disc layout is often different between the two. Try:
Code:
sudo diskutil listThere are many kinds of data on your developer preview disk:
S1. /System and the BSD subsystem (/bin, /sbin, /usr, /var, /etc, and more)
S2. /Library and many of its subfolders
U1. The Library folder in your home directory and other libraries, such as the iTunes library in the Music folder
U2. Third party application data in /Library and /Applications
U3. Your documents, images, etc. in your home directory in {Music|Documents|Pictures}
Even though they are in your home directory, the Library subfolder and the library of iTunes will be partially affected by the upgrade (in particular, ~/Library/Preferences, ~/Library/Mail). Those will be upgraded automatically when you first launch the corresponding applications. Since you have already upgraded to Lion, your Library folder is now in "DP4" state and SL is no longer able to make use of it.
Items in category U3 are not affected by the upgrade.
Items in category S1 and S2 will be ignored for the most part by the upgrade, save for some preferences such as your network settings, time zone, etc.
What follows is my current plan of how to upgrade from DP4 to final Lion, based on my experience with previous upgrades from DPs to SL GM.
First of all, make sure to have a second admin user on your developer preview disk (call it something harder to guess than "admin" though), and make sure it has as strong a password as your main user.
Keep a full clone (done with Disk Utility, CCC or Super Duper) of your Snow Leopard disk around for the next months.
When the final version of Lion comes out, clone your existing developer preview disk and keep that somewhere save as well. You will need it for the upgrade though. For total peace of mind, I will create two copies and only use one for the upgrade (see below).
Make sure both your cloned disks allow you to boot them up and all applications work fine.
At this point, your latest data is in the clone of your developer preview disk, so you want to migrate this.
So you clean install SL to your main disk, wiping it in the process (boot from DVD, choose Disk Utility from the Tools menu, format as Journaled HFS+, etc.). Don't install anything you don't need, it's a waste of time.
Boot your fresh SL, create a third admin user named differently than your other user accounts, login and upgrade SL to the latest version (likely 10.6.8).
Download the upgrade to Lion through the App Store. Now, before you start the upgrade, hook up your external disk with your Lion DP clone.
Once Lion is installed and done booting, log in as the admin user you created under SL and see if everything works.
Do any updates if possible. Give it a reboot or two.
Now open Migration Assistant to migrate your admin user you created at the beginning.
Log in and check if it works alright.
This serves the purpose of not wasting hours migrating your main user account with hundreds of gigabytes of data, only to find out it did not work.
Finally, open Migration Assistant again and migrate your main user. This is where you bring in the data from DP4 and people will say it's a mess. You do this at your own risk, I will try and expect it will work just fine. If it does not, you can always restore your SL clone to the main disk, upgrade to Lion and restore your data of category U3 manually.
Fingers crossed and good luck!
S1. /System and the BSD subsystem (/bin, /sbin, /usr, /var, /etc, and more)
S2. /Library and many of its subfolders
U1. The Library folder in your home directory and other libraries, such as the iTunes library in the Music folder
U2. Third party application data in /Library and /Applications
U3. Your documents, images, etc. in your home directory in {Music|Documents|Pictures}
Even though they are in your home directory, the Library subfolder and the library of iTunes will be partially affected by the upgrade (in particular, ~/Library/Preferences, ~/Library/Mail). Those will be upgraded automatically when you first launch the corresponding applications. Since you have already upgraded to Lion, your Library folder is now in "DP4" state and SL is no longer able to make use of it.
Items in category U3 are not affected by the upgrade.
Items in category S1 and S2 will be ignored for the most part by the upgrade, save for some preferences such as your network settings, time zone, etc.
What follows is my current plan of how to upgrade from DP4 to final Lion, based on my experience with previous upgrades from DPs to SL GM.
First of all, make sure to have a second admin user on your developer preview disk (call it something harder to guess than "admin" though), and make sure it has as strong a password as your main user.
Keep a full clone (done with Disk Utility, CCC or Super Duper) of your Snow Leopard disk around for the next months.
When the final version of Lion comes out, clone your existing developer preview disk and keep that somewhere save as well. You will need it for the upgrade though. For total peace of mind, I will create two copies and only use one for the upgrade (see below).
Make sure both your cloned disks allow you to boot them up and all applications work fine.
At this point, your latest data is in the clone of your developer preview disk, so you want to migrate this.
So you clean install SL to your main disk, wiping it in the process (boot from DVD, choose Disk Utility from the Tools menu, format as Journaled HFS+, etc.). Don't install anything you don't need, it's a waste of time.
Boot your fresh SL, create a third admin user named differently than your other user accounts, login and upgrade SL to the latest version (likely 10.6.8).
Download the upgrade to Lion through the App Store. Now, before you start the upgrade, hook up your external disk with your Lion DP clone.
Once Lion is installed and done booting, log in as the admin user you created under SL and see if everything works.
Do any updates if possible. Give it a reboot or two.
Now open Migration Assistant to migrate your admin user you created at the beginning.
Log in and check if it works alright.
This serves the purpose of not wasting hours migrating your main user account with hundreds of gigabytes of data, only to find out it did not work.
Finally, open Migration Assistant again and migrate your main user. This is where you bring in the data from DP4 and people will say it's a mess. You do this at your own risk, I will try and expect it will work just fine. If it does not, you can always restore your SL clone to the main disk, upgrade to Lion and restore your data of category U3 manually.
Fingers crossed and good luck!
To each his own. I think it's an unnecessary complication of things if you know where your stuff is.
True, but this does not affect what files are gonna be on your Lion disk. The only risk with Apple is that a GM is not necessarily the final version, i.e. there may be multiple GMs. Other companies call those final candidates and then change the name of the last final candidate, e.g. FC7, to GM once it's released.