Upgrading from 10.6.3

antodeco

Hi All,
I have a MBP (MacBookPro6,2) running 10.6.3 I am looking to upgrade from this, and I was wondering what the best way to upgrade is. I run alot of software that is only compatible properly with 10.6.3 (which is why I havent updated) but Im looking at installing Sim City, but that will only run on 10.6.4 or higher. Is there a middle ground I can take, or do I have to basically decide to not go with 10.6.4 to keep my exisiting software?

Thanks

mathepac

You could "clone" your Mac's internal hard-drive onto s suitable external drive (they're cheap at the moment) boot from it, upgrade to whatever version of the OS you wish, install the software you need and bingo, you're off to the races.

It's a bit fiddly but it leaves your production system alone and let's you experiment with configurations on the external drive with no risk to what you need to keep working.

SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner are some of tools that'll make cloned copies of your system to another drive.

In System Preferences simply select the Startup Drive you want. They'll be identified by name and also by the OS they boot into.

antodeco

Ah ok. So Im basically creating an upgraded version of my current OS on an external drive? I assume I need to have enough memory on the hard drive to cover the clone of my current system?

EDIT: I wonder would I better cloning onto the external drive, and then upgrading the internal drive. That way when I need to run the non compatible software, I can just plug in the hard drive?

mathepac

The new drive needs to have at least the same capacity (bigger is probably better) as the internal drive.

Whatever arrangement works best for you is fine; the basic idea is the same. Your suggestion is probably better in that the external drive acts as your back-up in case the internal drive dies for some reason. In case you're worried about being accused of piracy don't be; the expectation is you keep security copies of your data and software and that is all you are doing, provided you don't pass it around.

antodeco

With Carbon Copy, can you choose not to clone applications if you want? The reason I ask, is that I am going to decide to use the external HD as the "games" version, so want to remove alot of the applications (plus it means I have more room on the HDD, its 160gb). If I use the exteranl HD as my main drive, I am taking up a USB port, and some of the software I have requires the use of 2 USB's, so dont want to overload them.

mathepac

IMHO the cleanest way to get rid of unwanted apps and their associated files (logs, preferences, data-stores, hidden servers, etc) is to clone everything and then install an app like AppDelete or AppCleaner on the drive you want to clean up. These apps do a thorough job of eliminating unwanted apps and their hidden files and freeing up extra space. At least one of those apps runs under 10.6.x but I cant't remember which one.

Drop the application you want to get rid of onto the cleaner app or into an open window of the cleaner app and respond to to dialog box(es) you get - it couldn't be simpler.

nialler

When you say properly compatible with 10.6.3, I haven't run into any issues with Apps when I've software updated to 10.6.8 (the final update), subsequently gone to 10.7 and 10.8 on an intel imac, one or two issues with Rosetta no longer supported but can do without that.

Nialler