Why I have not installed Leopard (Though I own it)
I was one of the many loyal enthusiasts that pre-ordered Leopard and couldn’t wait to install it on all my Macs. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t work out that way.
If you haven’t heard of the installation problems with Leopard yet, there are a few. It seems the very popular third-party application Application Enhancer does not work well (at all) with Mac OS X Leopard.
I did a quick inventory of my software, and sure enough I had APE installed (along with several APE plugins). After attempting to uninstall APE, I was almost ready to try my Leopard upgrade and noticed a blog post about Logitech Control Center mouse software issues.
Of course I have two Logitech mice, and have the Logitech Control Center installed. It appears Logitech Control Center uses APE in the background. Logitech has instructions on removing the old software and installing a new version. Unfortunately, their instructions are flawed as they reference downloading and opening a DMG file and running an uninstaller, and upon downloading the zip archive from their software download page I only found an installer application.
Their online help mentions a manual uninstall, but does not give the instructions. After several unsuccessful attempts to find the instructions via Google, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I have removed most preference panes and locations that APE or Logitech appear in my hard drive (through the shell) but am still not convinced it is completely removed. When I try to run the updated Logitech software installation, it promptly gives me an error and quits.
So, I’m left to do an Archive and Install which will likely leave me having to reinstall several applications and clean off enough hard drive space to have two concurrent System folders (at least until the installation has completed). With only 10 GB free on my 100 GB hard drive, that will be hard.
I hope to have my backup complete tonight and will remove most of the files (like my massive iTunes collection) in order to perform the upgrade.
mdmunoz on November 1st, 2007 at 10:20 pm
I was under the impression that only old versions of APE caused problems, and that the Logitech issue was because people who didn’t know they had APE installed had never updated it since installing their mouse software.
Unsanity:
“I’d like to note that the problems some people were experiencing while doing the Mac OS X upgrade and being unable to boot due to Application Enhancer installed may have been caused by the “old” versions of Application Enhancer not properly recognizing the system version. The latest 2.0.3, released on 13 March, is properly detecting the upgrade and refuses to load so you should not have any issues with installing Leopard over it.”
mika on November 1st, 2007 at 10:21 pm
I’m glad I never install mouse drivers!
Derek on November 1st, 2007 at 10:23 pm
10GB is plenty. I only had 8 free on my PowerBook before performing an archive and install.
marc on November 2nd, 2007 at 4:37 am
brandon – try to uncheck the “automatic update” checkbox that is at the bottom of the installer window. then it should work.
Galley on November 2nd, 2007 at 7:03 am
I experienced the “blue screen of sadness”, but I have a Logitech Harmony remote, not a mouse. Does that software install APE as well?
tdi on November 2nd, 2007 at 7:05 am
Let me share my leopard experience with you:
I bought Leopard just for and upgrade, I’m not some apple maniac that looses hair when Steve announces new things.
My first impression was bad because installer did not see my hard drive. I rrun the disk druid and only after that and selecting Back, disk reappeared.
Installation/upgrade went smooth, all applications run without problems, I also did not loose any data.
I stared to browse new features in leopard and hey ! this is sad. There are no new things besides the one they shout about for past year. Ok new dock, stacks, mail and what else? Nothing. This should be called 10.4.11 not 10.5. I like new system and osx generally but switch from XP to Vista is like buying Mercedes after having Hyundai, installing Leopard does not give that feeling at all.
Tom von Schwerdtner on November 2nd, 2007 at 7:44 am
I initially did an upgrade install, and then later went back and used a backup to do a clean install + migration (for no good reason except I thought the underlying system might be a little cleaner that way).
I did both without any problems with Ape 2.0.3 installed, and with the Logitech Control Center installed.
Later, feeling a little down on Ape I decided to remove it along with LCC. I am now using my MX Revolution with SteerMouse and have not had any problems.
In short, I don’t think LCC and Ape are good enough reasons to stick with Tiger.
Good luck!
Ken on November 2nd, 2007 at 8:11 am
The Logitech software caused me nothing but problems under Tiger when I got the mouse (Logitech VX Revolution). I found that SteerMouse works much better than the Logitech software and works with Leopard as well. Granted you need to pay $20 (after the trial) for it, but it is well worth it in my opinion. In addition to working correctly it will also allow you to configure the mouse per application if you wish.
Brandon Eley on November 2nd, 2007 at 8:50 am
@tdi
There are a ton of new features in Leopard, but you have to remember that Apple releases a new version of Mac OS X every 12-18 months. It took Microsoft more than 5 years to release Vista, which simply updated XP to have many of the features that have been in Mac OS X Tiger (and earlier versions) for a long time. There wasn’t any need to overhaul the UI or look and feel of the MAC OS X system – it is simple and elegant and I think the visual changes made it even more so (with the exception of the translucent menu bar). The eye candy on Vista is a processor hog – who runs an operating system to see it’s flashy graphics? An OS is a file manager and for running software.
@everyone
Thanks for the suggestions. I got the new version of Logitech Control Center software installed finally.
Matt Radel on November 2nd, 2007 at 9:37 am
I’ve got a buddy at work that had the upgrade nuke his MBP. Needless to say, I’m extremely hesitant to do it with mine.
Aaron on November 2nd, 2007 at 10:02 am
You’re right about the lack of an uninstaller being included with LCC 2.3.1. Fortunately, I still had the DMG from LCC 2.2.2 on my iMac and it does include an uninstaller. If you’d like me to send you a copy, drop me an email.
Randy Stewart on November 2nd, 2007 at 10:57 am
It seems that the Installer for LCC is also an uninstaller, but I don’t have my copy handy. Have you tried running the installer again?
Cheers,
Randy
Aaron on November 2nd, 2007 at 11:41 am
Randy,
That was my first thought too. Maybe I overlooked it, but I tried looking for an uninstall option in the LCC 2.3.1 installer but couldn’t find it. Usually it’s under the “Installation Options” section, but not with this installer.
tdi on November 2nd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
@Brandon:
yes you are right, but time machine wasin server 2003 too. I totally agree that OSX i just too good to change it more, but the fuss was too big for such small visible changes. Do you guys have some link of changes in internals? Im not talking about unix userland updates, but some core of OSX.
bv on November 2nd, 2007 at 3:50 pm
leopard kicks so much ass. i can’t imagine not running after having it since it came out.
lovin it!
peace.
bv.
John Davis on November 3rd, 2007 at 8:43 am
The first time I tried to install 10.5, I got an error message, so I ran Diskwarrior and Applejack. Thereafter the install ran perfectly smoothly. I didn’t have APE installed, but it looked like it wouldn’t have installed even on my brand new iMac, without the clean up.
John Davis
Brandon Eley on November 3rd, 2007 at 10:22 am
@TDI
Core Animation is just one major back-end update to Leopard, which is pretty amazing. It lets developers make stunning apps, and is behind a lot of things already in Leopard, like the new Preview and Finder QuickView. The demonstration is amazing.
There are a lot of other improvements under the hood, especially for developers. The new developer tools are cool and I’m just now starting to play with them:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/developer/
I finally got Leopard installed — I was able to get a full backup using SuperDuper so I was less heistant about blowing up my drive (since I could just do a restore). I did an Archive and Install and it worked well.
Jesus on March 20th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Can I have your copy of Leopard then?