Hi, my 2009 MBP 17" still runs 10.5.8. Many new apps don't support Leopard. Is it worth buying the Snow Leopard disk and upgrading, or at this point should I go all the way to 10.8? I have tried SL and like it a lot, much better than Lion/ML. But is it likely to slide off the list of supported OSs soon? I know there are a lot of dedicated SL users out there, but that hasn't stopped Apple from abandoning users in the past...
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Leopard to Snow Leopard on MBP 2009 - worth it?
- Thread starter uncleMonty
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Snow Leopard is well worth the upgrade from Leopard. It's unbelievably quick, and streamlined. It's still pretty much 100% supported & is (IMO) the best release of OSX ever. However, if you want the iToys (Reminders, Launchpad, Game Center etc.) then you need ML.
Definitely don't want the iToys, or anything else about 10.7 or 10.8. I just don't want to go through the hassle of upgrading to 10.6 if I'm only going to have to do it all over again soon when software stops supporting 10.6.
Am I right in thinking that if I perform the upgrade, and not a fresh install, that the applications currently on the computer will continue to work? Will they *really* all work, or is it a case of "most of them will probably kind of work" until I do a lot of work updating apps etc.?
I am also thinking of putting in a new SSD to prolong this computer's life. Should I clone the current install to the new drive then upgrade with the new drive installed, or upgrade first on the old drive and then clone everything to the new drive?
Thanks.
Am I right in thinking that if I perform the upgrade, and not a fresh install, that the applications currently on the computer will continue to work? Will they *really* all work, or is it a case of "most of them will probably kind of work" until I do a lot of work updating apps etc.?
I am also thinking of putting in a new SSD to prolong this computer's life. Should I clone the current install to the new drive then upgrade with the new drive installed, or upgrade first on the old drive and then clone everything to the new drive?
Thanks.
up until my late 2006 MBP was stolen, I was running Snow Leopard on it. I preferred Leopard, really, because expose has blue borders around it in SL. Otherwise they seemed 100% identical.
I'm currently running 10.6.8 and love it. My iMac is capable of running ML but I choose not to.
I did the upgrade and not a fresh install of SL and had no problems at all.
With SL, "it just works".
I did the upgrade and not a fresh install of SL and had no problems at all.
With SL, "it just works".
If the apps will work on Snow Leopard, then most should continue to work fine after a "standard" install that replaces the OS and leaves all your other data intact. Anything big that requires a 'serious' installer and leaves lots of files everywhere, like Adobe Creative Suite, will probably need reinstalling.
If you've got lots of older software, then you may get some problems. Snow Leopard installs Rosetta (the emulation for PPC code) as an option, and if an app needs it, it will offer to install it if it's not there. However, I took this as an opportunity to make sure I had no PPC apps and that all my software was reasonably current.
Every software company should say on their website what versions of their software is compatible with which versions of OS X. Snow Leopard does break some apps that ran on Leopard, least we forget.
Thanks, that's useful. I doubt any programs on my MBP are PPC -- 2009 is not *that* long ago after all.