10.5.2 Post-Install Notes

I just couldn’t hold off any longer and just went ahead with the installation of yesterday’s Mac OS X 10.5.2 update. Here’s my advice to those who haven’t yet installed this update:

First, backup before proceeding, OS updates are quite dangerous. The best backup would involve making a bootable clone, but Time Machine works too.

Second, due to Aperture 2.0 having just been released you’ll be prompted to install an iLife Support update along with 10.5.2. You might as well take it because there’s absolutely no reason why you wouldn’t.

Third, after the installation be prepared to have your mac reboot twice, this is normal for OS updates. The first reboot will render the grey screen for about 4 minutes, the second 2 minutes before entering the login window.

Fourth, right after logging in go back to Software Update and install the Leopard Graphics Update. This installation will require another reboot.

Once you’re back in your user account for good (until the next restart-required update) you should note these things:

First, a Time Machine menu extra will exist in your menubar. You can disable it in the Time Machine preference pane, but for those of you using Time Machine as your sole backup application it may be quite useful.

Second, iCal will need to upgrade your calendar database when first launched. This will take about 2 minutes and iCal will be unresponsive during this time.

Third, note the “folder” option in the contextual menu of each of your Stacks and the new checkbox in the Desktop tab of the Desktop & Screensaver System Preferences pane. The new Stacks option will keep the Dock icon the icon of the folder and the new checkbox toggles the menubar being translucent or not.

Fourth, in the Sharing preferences you’ll find a new service entitled “DVD or CD Sharing”. As suggested by the title, this new service is the “host” side of the MacBook Air’s Remote Disk feature.

Fifth, the menu transparency has been greatly reduced making readability of the menu options better.

There are many other changes that are less obvious to me. So far I’ve only seen one bad report related to these 3 updates. Enjoy, Alex.