This is sort of a dumb question, but what exactly does an Archive & Install do? I know in the Windows world, it puts your previous Windows installation in a Windows.old folder, and all programs are lost. What does Leopard do?
By the way, when doing an Archive&Install you can choose to Preserve Users and Network Settings in which case your user(s) home folders will be restored as they were before the reinstall. So yes, you could keep all your photos and music.
This said, even if you DON'T choose this option, you can jsut copy stuff over from the "Previous System" folder after the fact. Sometimes it's desirable to NOT preserve the user folders if you suspect that could be the source of your problem(s).
thanks for the fast reply peeps.
I've only had my mbp under a month so no problems,
Would you recommend i just do a upgrade when leopard arrives?
Or archive and install?
Archive and Install keeps EVERYTHING.
It backs up EVERYTHING on the computer, performs a clean install and then merges in everything that it does not recognize.
So, if it knows about the Application iTunes, it does not copy the old version into the new installation.
All of your user-specific files will be retained.
This includes Applications that are not included on the Install Disc.
Only "system" files are not copied over.