Mac OS 10.5.6 solves its own updating issue

Stephen Withers
Friday, 19 December 2008 00:30

Opinion and Analysis

Just don't be too quick to hit that button. Some users have reported that it can take 10 minutes or more for the update process to complete.

So once that "Configuring installation" message appears on the screen, have a coffee break or take the dog for a walk round the block before you assume that the incomplete download bug has struck.

The good news is that if you've previously shied away from using Software Update and preferred to download the regular or combo updater, you may be able to change your habits once 10.5.6 is running on your system.

But there's still a couple of things to be said for downloading the updaters manually.

If you are responsible for multiple machines, you're almost certain to minimise the impact on your download quota by grabbing the updater once rather than running Software Update on each Mac.

And while the combo updater is considerably larger than the regular updater (and gets bigger with each release as successive changes get rolled up into one package), it will save you a lot of time if you ever need to reinstall Mac OS X from scratch.

All you'll need to do is run the installer from the DVD, then apply one update. That beats having to apply successive updates (10.5.1, 10.5.2... 10.5.6) or waiting while Software Update does its thing - especially as Software Update is known to be flawed in Leopard versions prior to 10.5.6.