The Difference Between an Apple and Microsoft Upgrade

      by Wyatt Walter

Like a good little Apple fan, I went out and purchased a copy of the new Snow Leopard OS from my local Mac store yesterday. I got it home, popped open the box, popped the DVD into my MacBook, told it to upgrade and in 45 minutes or so I was playing with the new features of Snow Leopard. This really was my first operating system upgrade as an Apple fan and I have to say I was impressed. I was an Apple fan before the Leopard release, but I didn’t do an in-place upgrade for other reasons at the time.

Why is this cool or even worth noting? Because that was all I did. I didn’t look at some chart to see which copy of Snow Leopard was right for my computer. I didn’t have to double-check that I was running the 32-bit version instead of 64-bit. I didn’t run my computer and peripherals through some software to make sure they were compatible. All I cared about was that I had a MacBook running Leopard, so I purchased Snow Leopard and popped the DVD in the drive. And guess what? My computer now runs faster! In fact, I am now using something like 6 GB less disk space than before.

The other cool part was that I didn’t reinstall any software, nor did I re-activate anything. Unlike doing an upgrade with Microsoft software involved, I wasn’t treated like a pirate and required to jump through hoops to use my software again. I just loaded it again. The user experience from the store to upgrade complete was very smooth and straight-forward.

While it’s certainly true that the upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard was far less of a jump than Windows XP to Vista or even Vista to 7, but it really doesn’t matter. I had to put far less care into the upgrade and just did it. And that (among a few other things) is why I do, and will continue to do for the foreseeable future, recommend Apple products to those who ask me their opinion on what computer to buy.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (4) : Aug 29th, 2009

4 Responses to “The Difference Between an Apple and Microsoft Upgrade”

  1. AdamC Says:
    August 30th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    Now I know why people preferred to use the pirated version of windows – it is less intimidating and humiliating.

  2. Ian Says:
    August 30th, 2009 at 8:39 pm

    One feature of the Snow Leopard upgrade reminiscent of a Microsoft upgrade is trouble with printer support – many printer drivers for common HP or Canon printers are not yet ready for Snow Leopard and “missing in action”, meaning their owners either cannot use their printers with Snow Leopard yet, have to downgrade back to Leopard or have to purchase a new printer. So, all is not entirely smooth in Snow Leopard / Apple land (see the “Printing” section of Snow Leopard support on the Apple forums for more details of the pain.)

  3. Donna A. Says:
    September 1st, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    It’s not true that you have to downgrade to Leopard or purchase a new printer if drivers aren’t available. You simply load Rosetta and use the drivers you’ve always been using. I had to do it for my old Epson 2200.

  4. Partners in Grime Says:
    September 3rd, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    Awesome! My Snow Leopard update finished in about 45 minutes as well. Snow Leopard comes with some new features and abilities but I like the fact that I don’t have to relearn anything.

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