Lion to Mountain Lion Upgrade now?

[fartheststar]

Hello,

I run Lion on a Mac Pro 3,1 and a Macbook Pro 5,1. The Mac Pro is a business machine, I depend on it for a living. Laptop is less important, it's portable, but everything on it is on the Mac Pro and backed up at least once if not twice.

I'm on Lion because I upgraded the Mac Pro to run Avid Media Composer 6. Now that I'm on MC7, it's supported on Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks. Other important applications I use include the Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5), and it seems that to play it safe, CS5 should be used on Lion or Mountain Lion.... I read 'iffy' things about Mavericks and CS5 and am not ready to begin renting their new software suite.

I am wondering if it's worthwhile to upgrade to Mountain Lion. The thought came about when the App store yelled at me that I couldn't install some software I purchased, because they updated the app recently so that it can't work on Lion any more (but Mountain Lion will offer you last compatible version). Also, a friend recently had to upgrade to ML from Snow Leopard when he updated his Protools rig.

Can you please give me reasons as to why I'd want to, and why I wouldn't?

-Is it snappier? (little lol)

-I guess it's more likely to be supported then Lion for security updates?

Anything else functionality wise I'd enjoy?

Trying to get some perspective as to why I would upgrade the OS or just leave well enough alone. It might be good to point out that I don't use Launchpad, or Mission Control, just the dock, quicksilver, keyboard, and a mouse.

Thanks. Not interested in upgrading to Mavericks.

 

[Bear]

...
Trying to get some perspective as to why I would upgrade the OS or just leave well enough alone. It might be good to point out that I don't use Launchpad, or Mission Control, just the dock, quicksilver, keyboard, and a mouse.
...

The only reason I went from Lion to Mountain Lion last year as when a utility I needed was Mountain Lion only. I also got better iCloud support which was a good thing as well.

You will see security updates and Safari updates for a longer time for Mountain Lion.

If you need applications that require Mountain Lion, that would be a good reason to upgrade.

If you want better iCloud support, Mountain Lion is the way to go.

If you want to be able to make applications specifically ask if you want to save a document instead of autosaving it when you close the document or quit the application, Mountain Lion is the way to go.

If you don't need any of that, well you have a stable environment for your business, sometimes it's good to not fix things that aren't broken.

If you do decide to try Mountain Lion, I suggest you start with the less important system and make sure you have a full backup in case you need to revert to Lion. Let that system run for a period of time to make sure everything is working fine, then upgrade the other system.

 

[fartheststar]

Bear,

Thank you very much for your insight. I've decided to buy Mountain Lion (through their website... I'm going to get a code by email?!) just in case they ever pull it. It's only $20.

I'll do as you suggest, back up boot drive of laptop, install, play when I can, with all the applications I have, etc, and when I get to the end of my work (or a suitable break anyway) and it's all been tested, will upgrade the main system if it works for my needs. I like the 'support' aspect.

Going to make a USB copy of the OS, again, just in case they ever pull it. I love Macs, they enable me to be more productive, but I don't like the App Store and the inability to be in control of re-downloading products. I have a product that is no longer for sale that can't be downloaded - the company wants me to upgrade to a subscription (it's not Adobe).