We all want to get the the best experience from our computers so it is perhaps natural that many users have asked us about upgrading to Apple’s newest desktop operating system: Mac OS X 10.6 code named “Snow Leopard”. Apple’s PR claims that Snow Leopard builds upon the strengths of their previous release 10.5 code named “Leopard” while improving performance and adding support for Microsoft’s enterprise communications product Exchange.
Real World Experience
Snow Leopard is what we call an incremental release more like a Service Pack in the Windows world than a whole new version for example XP SP1 versus XP SP3 rather than XP versus Windows 7. Snow Leopard does a lot to let users take advantage of new capabilities in the latest hardware rather than drastically changing the way you use your computer. Thus it should be no surprise that our advice is Snow Leopard is a worthwhile upgrade primarily for users of newer hardware with at least 2 GB of memory (RAM) installed.
Q. But what about Exchange support for users of older computers?
A. To get full Exchange support you may have to buy a new computer. Unfortunately that is not part of the economic reality for most of us, however, most of the features you want to use are available in older versions of the Mac OS as Apple has been slowly developing support for Exchange since version 10.3. The PR for Snow Leopard really refers to the fact that Apple has finished implementing support for the publicly documented parts of Exchange.
Q. I bought my computer 2 years ago. Is that new enough?
A. You only need a Mac featuring an Intel Processor to run Snow Leopard so most Mac built during or after 2006 are strictly new enough. Most of the advantage of running Snow Leopard though comes from the enhanced support for 64 bit Intel processors These are the Core 2 Duo and newer. Since all Macs with processors newer than the Core 2 Duo however shipped with Snow Leopard preinstalled this means that the target audience for Snow Leopard upgrades is really those users of Core 2 Duo machines only.
Q. How can I tell what processor is in my machine?
A. The easiest way is to go the the Apple menu 
in the top left corner of your screen and choose the first item in the menu “About This Mac”. In the window that appears your current Operating System version and your processor will be listed. The computer on which the image below was taken can take advantage of Snow Leopard.
About This Mac Dialog
Installing
Once you have determined that your computer is supported you will need to purchase a copy of Snow Leopard from any retailer. Unlike Windows which comes in multiple flavors, Apple offers only two versions of their OS, one for servers and one for all other Macs. You can however get a discount if you are upgrading multiple computers by purchasing a “Family Pack”.
It is always wise to have a backup of your computer either managed by Time Machine or manually with a product like Carbon Copy Cloner before upgrading your OS. Don’t have a backup? MePush can help… When the does arrive software arrive, the actually upgrade process is fairly simple. You insert the disk into your computer’s optical drive then reboot your computer. Hold down the ‘c’ key on your keyboard while your Mac boots and it will boot into the installer. At this point you should only need to follow the on screen prompts. Very rarely, a problem may crop up; like the installer saying that it can not install onto this computer. Should a problem arise, stop, shutdown the computer and give us a call. Normally, however, you will complete the prompts and the installer will begin modifications to your computer’s software. At this point you can go grab a cup of coffee as the install can take up to half an hour. Finally, your computer will reboot and you will have upgraded to the latest version of the OS. Take a moment and run Software Update for your computer, second item down under the Apple Menu and for your non Apple supplied applications, varies by application but often under the first menu to the right of the Apple Menu or for Microsoft products in the “Help” menu.
What Can You Expect
Soon after Snow Leopard’s release there were a number of reports of problems. At the time of this writing we can happily say that most of those issues have been resolved with Software Updates released in the interim. Most users tell us that the biggest change they notice form Leopard is in Time Machine running much quicker and with fewer problems. You may also notice a number of user interface refinements but our feeling is that by at large the greatest advantage is to those users upgrading from Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” who will gain the benefits of Leopard plus the accelerations built into Snow Leopard.
