Huge new Mac and Windows updates

Your favorite two operating systems each have major new revisions/service packs awaiting your download and install.

On the Mac side, Leopard users can download 10.5.3, a “long-awaited” update which is supposed to fix a lot of bugs and problems that have been with Leopard since day one. Depending on what type of Mac you have, the update is anywhere from 120-some megs to a whopping 420 megs. Software Update will detect the proper version for your system. I always recommend that you clone your boot drive to a backup external drive before applying an update like this. That way, if it goes south, you can just clone your old OS from the backup back onto your main drive - no harm, no foul.

I’ve applied the 10.5.3 update on my Mac Pro tower, and have not had any issues. The first thing I noticed was that iCal wanted to sync a whole bunch of stuff, which fits in with reports that 10.5.3 brings a lot of fixes to iCal syncing. The system seems to be a little more responsive on my LAN as well, finding and mounting other volumes on the network a bit quicker.

I also applied the update to my Macbook Pro, and - hurray! - the incredibly annoying problem with closing the lid and then not being able to wake from sleep seems to be gone! I’ll be watching it carefully, though, as this seems too good to be true.

On the Windows side, Windows XP Service Pack 3 is going to start showing up in your Windows Updates alerts any day now. Businesses using their own centralized Windows Software Update Server can already download it and deploy to their users.

I haven’t tried XP SP3 yet, so I can’t report on its stability. I’d hold off a month or two if possible, anyways, and monitor the tech media for any news about major issues.

It’s more difficult to clone a Windows system properly if you don’t know what you’re doing. So you might want to give me a call and we can talk about support options when the time comes.

In my case, I’m not working with a physical XP machine but a “virtual” XP installation, which means I’ll be able to test this service pack very easily with no risk of goofing up a working XP installation. To my Mac, the entire XP operating system, programs, and files is just one more program among other Mac programs. (The program that lets you run an XP virtual machine is Parallels - and note that this only works on Intel Macs). The XP installation doesn’t consume an entire physical hard drive - it’s just one file on my disk (albeit a big one - 12 gigs).

All I have to do to “clone” my XP system for safety before installing SP3 is back up that file, then launch XP and install SP3. If the update doesn’t work out, I’ve got my original virtual hard disk. Pretty sweet.

If you’re in the market for a new computer, this is a very compelling reason to consider a Mac. You can use XP (or Vista, or Windows 2000, or Linux, etc) as a virtual machine which you can easily backup or clone, yet you still get all the OSX goodness.