[bbales]

I made a mistake doing the Leopard install. I MISSED the options part, and was thinking/hoping the selecting of HOW to install was a step further along than it was. As we speak, my computer (iMac; mid-2007 version) is installing merrily away, doing what I am assuming is the dumb "basic" installation, rather than the archive and install I wanted to do.

So, how much trouble am I probably in? Could it be none? That would be awfully nice.

I do have a full backup, of course, but I'd rather not spend the evening restoring the iMac and thenstarting over...

[Cold Warrior]

It'll format the drive to mark all the space as free (open to write), then overwrite what it needs to in order to install its files.

At this point you'll have a fresh installation. Might as well copy over what you need from the backup, unless it'd be quicker to restore.

[Chuckit]

Uh, I don't think that's right. The default option is upgrade, or at least it was on mine.

Anyway, it's not likely to cause any trouble. If it does, you can archive-and-install later and get the same effect as having done it in the first place.

[bbales]

Well, I'm up and running and all seems well! I'm just starting out with Leopard -- trying to see what's big, new and exciting. I will say, boy is Mail fast! All seems in place; knock on wood. And obviously, internet settings work just fine. What a relief. Can't believe I didn't see the "options" portion. I was nervous, as that seemed to me to be asking for trouble.

[bbales]

Hmmm, wanted to check out the speed of spotlight, but it's currently indexing.

[Cold Warrior]

Yeah, I think you're right. Upgrade should be the default option for him.

Upgrades are issue-prone, so do an archive-install right after, then update to 10.5.2 (per your question in another thread earlier).

[MacosNerd]

While it turned out ok, this should re-emphasize the need to have a recent backup before doing any upgrades

[peeb]

While it is possible to have issues upgrading, the vast majority of users do not. If you have no issues with your current installation, it's worth doing an upgrade. You can always archive and install if there are problems.

[bbales]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

While it turned out ok, this should re-emphasize the need to have a recent backup before doing any upgrades

That's for sure. And that's why I did one, immediately before the upgrade. I cannot imagine having done this without having a complete backup right there.

[Brass]

Originally Posted by peeb 

While it is possible to have issues upgrading, the vast majority of users do not. If you have no issues with your current installation, it's worth doing an upgrade. You can always archive and install if there are problems.

That depends on what issues/problems occur during upgrade (if any). My father had a brand new iMac with a clean install of the latest release of Tiger. I thought that if anyone was safe to do an upgrade, it would be him. But the Leopard upgrade completely destroyed his sytem, making it entirely unbootable. Even the local Apple Shop was not able to do anything to resurrect his disk and reformatted it and installed Leopard clean on it for him instead.

No archive-install-after-upgrade option for him.

Yes, the majority of people do not have problems with the upgrade, however, the percentage of people that do is MUCH, MUCH higher with Leopard than with any previous release of the OS (in my experience with all the Mac users I know). Also, the number of different types of problems that can occur seems higher than usual as well.
Thankfully, I had set up an automated backup system for him using cron and rsync (similar to the way Time Machine works), and was able to recover all of his data.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Brass 

That depends on what issues/problems occur during upgrade (if any). My father had a brand new iMac with a clean install of the latest release of Tiger. I thought that if anyone was safe to do an upgrade, it would be him. But the Leopard upgrade completely destroyed his sytem, making it entirely unbootable. Even the local Apple Shop was not able to do anything to resurrect his disk and reformatted it and installed Leopard clean on it for him instead.

And were you able to determine that this was caused by the upgrade-install?

This stuff ain't magic. If one clean install doesn't break after an upgrade-install and another does, it's most likely not the upgrade-install that's causing your problems. So unless you can establish that this is a common problem or explain how an upgrade would break a clean install, blaming the upgrade seems a bit superstitious to me.

A more likely explanation: There were existing problems with his hard drive that the massive amounts of writing involved in the install revealed. Reformatting the drive fixed this.

[Brass]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

And were you able to determine that this was caused by the upgrade-install?

This stuff ain't magic. If one clean install doesn't break after an upgrade-install and another does, it's most likely not the upgrade-install that's causing your problems. So unless you can establish that this is a common problem or explain how an upgrade would break a clean install, blaming the upgrade seems a bit superstitious to me.

A more likely explanation: There were existing problems with his hard drive that the massive amounts of writing involved in the install revealed. Reformatting the drive fixed this.

Sure, that is a slim but distinct possibility.

However, with the obvious lack of quality control that went into Leopard (compared to previous versions), and with the hard disk being virtually brand new, I think a bug in Leopard or in the Leopard installer is the most likely candidate. And besides, others have had the same problem, and it occurs BEFORE it actually does any installing, therefore disk activity is not an issue.

Either way, my original point still stands, whether it's the installers fault or not: You cannot always rely on being able to do an archive install if your upgrade install fails.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Brass 

Sure, that is a slim but distinct possibility.

Disk errors are not uncommon. A piece of software messing up one system but not another totally identical system is quite a bit less common. That's not saying it couldn't be an installer bug, but it just seems like jumping to conclusions to have an install fail and decide that the installer must nondeterministically hose installations (and only in one install mode, to boot).

Originally Posted by Brass 

Either way, my original point still stands, whether it's the installers fault or not: You cannot always rely on being able to do an archive install if your upgrade install fails.

True, but not any less true of an archive install.

[bbales]

Boy, that's too bad that happened, wity a new iMac. I'd have not been happy! I was pretty thankful the garden-variety "upgrade" worked, as I've read so many horror stories over the years. Normally, I would never have done the simple upgrade; I woudl have done "archive and install." but as I said, all worked out for me. I was up and running in no time flat, and all was well. And I'm quite enjoying learning the Leopard tricks.

[Brass]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Disk errors are not uncommon. A piece of software messing up one system but not another totally identical system is quite a bit less common. That's not saying it couldn't be an installer bug, but it just seems like jumping to conclusions to have an install fail and decide that the installer must nondeterministically hose installations (and only in one install mode, to boot).

Identical to what? No two systems are identical. Even near new systems are not identical. Even brand new systems are not identical. In this case the system had been in use for a couple of days. A very light user, with the only additional significant software having been installed was Apple software (when I said 'brand new' and 'clean install', I may have misled you - sorry if that was the case). Since the problem was not unique to this one instance, it is more likely an installer bug than a disk writing failure. But as I said, this is all completely off the point I was trying to make.

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

True, but not any less true of an archive install.

eh? So what? You can't do an archive install after a failed archive install? OK.

I can't be bothered with such a pedantic argument. This is getting a bit silly. I give up. You win.

[Brass]

Originally Posted by bbales 

Boy, that's too bad that happened, wity a new iMac. I'd have not been happy! I was pretty thankful the garden-variety "upgrade" worked, as I've read so many horror stories over the years. Normally, I would never have done the simple upgrade; I woudl have done "archive and install." but as I said, all worked out for me. I was up and running in no time flat, and all was well. And I'm quite enjoying learning the Leopard tricks.

Yes, it's very sad that the Mac OS X community has, by necessity, come to consider the "Upgrade" install option to be dangerous, and that we should always aim to do an "Archive" install. Upgrade really should be no problems, but Apple really don't have their act together here.

Even on the old relatively unstable classic Mac OS systems (up to Mac OS X), a plain upgrade install always worked well, and was very reliable in my experience (never came across any problems either with my own systems, or with any of the others I looked after for others).

However, Mac OS X is a completely different ball game. Although far superior to the classic Mac OS systems in most ways, the upgrade process does seem to be a lot less reliable. Maybe that's because it's a much more complicated system, or maybe Apple doesn't have their act together. Probably a bit of both, I think.

[peeb]

Upgrade is plenty reliable - the problems are few and far between - the pain of recommending people don't use it is far greater than the problems it occasionally causes.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Brass 

Even on the old relatively unstable classic Mac OS systems (up to Mac OS X), a plain upgrade install always worked well, and was very reliable in my experience (never came across any problems either with my own systems, or with any of the others I looked after for others).

I always did clean installs when upgrading the classic Mac OS.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I always did clean installs when upgrading the classic Mac OS.

That's cos you're a geek. That's fine, but for most people, it's not a good use of their time.

[JKT]

If the trends at macfixit are anything to go by, then Leopard has by far and away been the worst ever OS X update in terms of problems suffered. Ever since they have been running the poll after each (point and major) update for OS X, the figures have been roughly 60% no problems, 20% minor problems, 20% major problems for each and every update. With Leopard that shifted to 20% no problems, 40% minor problems, 40% major problems, which is the first time more than about 40% of people have reported any issues*. Personally, I would recommend an archive and install for anyone going to Leopard just because it has been a big headache for a lot more people than normal.

* Note, that doesn't mean that 80% of all Mac users have had problems with an update to Leopard, just that twice the number of visitors to macfixit than normal have. Likewise it doesn't mean that 40% of people updating to any other version of OS X have had problems in the past. However, it is the doubling of people with issues that is notable.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by JKT 

* Note, that doesn't mean that 80% of all Mac users have had problems with an update to Leopard, just that twice the number of visitors to macfixit than normal have.

Not even that. It means that twice the number of people who felt the need to respond to a poll on issues with OS installation had issues. Essentially, their methodology is so shoddy we can conclude absolutely nothing at all with any confidence.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by JKT 

With Leopard that shifted to 20% no problems, 40% minor problems, 40% major problems, which is the first time more than about 40% of people have reported any issues*.

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that Leopard was perhaps the most disruptive milestone release to date concerning changes to some underlying OS features that a number of third party applications relied on. Obviously it's not good to make users deal with new incompatibilities, but it's a comparatively small price to pay for moving the OS's technology forward.

People should be used to doing Archive and Installs. It's just a better way to upgrade to a new version. As for it being less convenient for regular users, I don't really see how that's the case. Less convenient as in not being the default option? Less convenient as in being left with a Previous Systems folder? I don't really see it as any less convenient since the installer handles the heavy lifting.

[peeb]

You think it's less convenient because you understand it. How about I give you my elderly relatives phone numbers, and you talk them through it? Sure, there are advantages to A&E, but for most non-power users, upgrading is the way to go.

[Big Mac]

I'm still not really buying it. i wouldn't want elderly relations installing OS X, period. I wouldn't want my middle aged mother installing OS X, either. People who install OS upgrades are usually more tech savvy than not. The rest of the user base are usually content with what they have (and those who aren't have knowledgeable friends do installations for them).

[peeb]

I don't agree - I think a lot of non-tech savvy people install os upgrades - the whole process of OSX upgrades tries to be 'just put the disk in and click yes to everything'. I'd wager that at least half of leopard installers don't know what the difference between upgrade and U&E is.

[Big Mac]

I don't even know what U&E is.

It would be interesting to have some proof to backup our respective assertions. If you're right about average people installing upgrades, your point is more valid. Yet, I still don't think the concept or execution of an Archive and Install installation should be that difficult to grasp. You tell the user, "An Archive and Install is a safer way of upgrading OS X, so just make sure to select that as your installation choice when you install Leopard," and that should be it.

[peeb]

Well, I don't have hard numbers, but the OP here didn't know the difference, and he is a long time member of a Mac forum. Selecting A&E (oops!) is only part of it - you then have to talk them through pulling the various parts of their old install back into the new one, and then deleting the old one. Sure - you find it easy...

[Big Mac]

What parts do they need to put in? Okay, some drivers from the old installation won't be carried over (for some reason in my install my Lexmark driver made it but my Canon driver did not), but it's a better idea to install those drivers fresh from company sites because new versions may be required by the new OS. As for deleting the Previous Systems folder, you tell them that when they're confident everything is working properly, they can trash the folder and its contents. No big deal.

Macs are supposed to be easy. They're not supposed to be so easy that drooling nincompoops can accomplish all kinds of administrative tasks. Computers will always require a degree of human thought in those areas.

[peeb]

It's my impression that the upgrade installer is designed with drooling nincompoops in mind. There is also the angle that smart people don't necessarily understand anything about computers. Calling someone who doesn't understand the intricacies of archiving and installing vs upgrading a drooling nincompoop is a little harsh, imho.

[Big Mac]

Okay, point taken. I didn't mean that people who don't understand something simple like Archive and Install are stupid. Perhaps technologically challenged is a friendlier way to describe them.

[Chuckit]

I really think rumors of upgrading's "danger' are greatly exaggerated. I've installed OS X on more computers than I can count, using a variety of different installation methods, and the odds of something going wrong soon afterward have been roughly equal in my experience. So if there is a difference, it seems to be pretty small. Granted, my experience isn't exactly an academic study, but this is how it seems to me.

[DCJ001]

I did a simple upgrade with no problems whatsoever. Maybe I'm idealistic, but I'm under the impression that Apple wouldn't offer the simple upgrade option by default if it weren't their recommended method, anticipating only a small percentage of problems.

I have, however, heard of people having problems caused by hacks that were not Leopard-compatible.

[sc_markt]

Originally Posted by bbales 

I made a mistake doing the Leopard install. I MISSED the options part, and was thinking/hoping the selecting of HOW to install was a step further along than it was. As we speak, my computer (iMac; mid-2007 version) is installing merrily away, doing what I am assuming is the dumb "basic" installation, rather than the archive and install I wanted to do.

So, how much trouble am I probably in? Could it be none? That would be awfully nice.

I do have a full backup, of course, but I'd rather not spend the evening restoring the iMac and thenstarting over...

I did the same dang thing and I was sure I had erased everything on my computer. In fact, when it was all done with the install and it started up, I was both confused and surprised to see my and my family's login names. I logged in and everything was there. I was shocked (and relieved)!

Mark

[JKT]

I think the security of a simple upgrade would be greatly improved if Apple forcibly disabled system hacks like APE and SIMBL that have consistently caused people problems, rather than leaving them running. Given the massive amount of bad press Leopard received because of people not upgrading APE for over a year, I think they would be fully justified in doing so, especially as a lot of those people didn't even know they were running it.

[Big Mac]

It would make sense for the installer to do that - the upgrade installer could be made to search for known incompatible files and place them in a System (Disabled) folder, but Apple doesn't always put in that last bit of engineering effort to really make things work better for users. For example, iTunes should offer a manual iPod copy mode that would prompt the user to overwrite files that appear to be duplicates. But no, it's either automatic sync or fully manual mode.

[bbales]

Originally Posted by sc_markt 

I did the same dang thing and I was sure I had erased everything on my computer. In fact, when it was all done with the install and it started up, I was both confused and surprised to see my and my family's login names. I logged in and everything was there. I was shocked (and relieved)!

Mark

It was so lovely to have a trouble-free install! (Though, actually, I can't think of any that have caused a lot of problems. Migrating from my G4 to my new iMac -- that was an enormous headache. BUt must system upgrades have been pretty unenventul. I think I let some bad press get to me...)

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

the upgrade installer could be made to search for known incompatible files and place them in a System (Disabled) folder

APE (and SIMBL?) are incompatible files in the eyes of Apple who actively discourage you from using them - the release notes of each upgrade explicitly state that you shouldn't use third-party modifications to the system and Apple can't be responsible for problems that they might cause. So, even if APE worked flawlessly, Apple would still consider it incompatible.