Worries Upgrading Tiger to Snow Leopard

[megd23]

I've read a lot about upgrading from Tiger to Snow Leopard and I think thats the way I'm going to go.

I bought an external hard drive to back up everything but I'm a bit worried about a couple of my programs that are installed and I don't have the license key's, etc for (Office 2008 and Papers specifically). Will I lose these in the changeover? Is there a way to ensure I don't?

Also, if I go and buy the Snow Leopard disk today it will still work in this fashion, correct? (e.g., Mac didn't catch up with the error and somehow make this impossible now)?.

Finally, there is only one type of disk that can be bought, right? I need to run a 64 bit program (matlab) and want to make sure I can do this since its basically the reason I'm going through all of this now and not waiting until this summer for Lion.

Thanks for your help, and any tips on ensuring a smooth upgrade would be great too!
Meghan

 

[MacDawg]

What Mac do you have?

 

[megd23]

Oh sorry -

Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro2,2
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz

 

[Gregg2]

Whether or not your applications are preserved depends on the choice you make when installing the new OS.

 

[megd23]

Whether or not your applications are preserved depends on the choice you make when installing the new OS.

Ok - well what choice can I make that will preserve my applications?

 

[jman240]

Make sure to do a full backup before you even begin. I use SuperDuper but to each his own.

I've done this upgrade on two machines. One Macbook and it went well, one Mac Mini and it failed miserably resulting in a botched partition table and the need for a full restore.

Ok - well what choice can I make that will preserve my applications?

It should just upgrade if you go through the menus at boot normally. Apple tends to use very clear descriptions of options on an OS install so you should be fine once you see it.

 

[satcomer]

Then consult the Snow Leopard Compatibility Table to see if your programs need updating.

Plus the best way to jump that forward is to do a Clean Install using the "upgrade disk". This will be the best way jumping ahead so far.

 

[megd23]

Then consult the Snow Leopard Compatibility Table to see if your programs need updating.

Plus the best way to jump that forward is to do a Clean Install using the "upgrade disk". This will be the best way jumping ahead so far.

Ok Thanks for your help everyone! If I do a clean install do I risk losing my applications?

 

[satcomer]

Ok Thanks for your help everyone! If I do a clean install do I risk losing my applications?

That is why the guide tells you to backup your Mac first. Then you can use Migration Assistant to get the data back.

 

[megd23]

Ok sorry - so I got an external hard drive and following a tutorial I found I put the boot disk in for OSx 10.4, went to the utilities and copied a disk image to the external hard drive which is now called disk0s2.dmg. When I install Snow Leopard and do the migration assistant is this adequate to ensure a smooth transfer? Or do I need to do something else?

I've never done this before, so sorry for all the questions.