Apple Snow Leopard Clean Install Mac Pro

This weekend I bit the bullet and did a clean install of Apples Snow Leopard new OS on my Mac Pro at home. The process is really simple, however me being who I am wanted to be completely anal about the whole thing. I made sure every app that could be backed up was, I also exported and wrote down many settings for various apps. I also have to note I love the price to upgrade – under $50 bucks for a Family pack! Beat that Uncle Bill!

Here was my procedure…

1. I backed everything up to another internal drive.
2. Took screen shots of my applications installed in my Apps folder (for reference later).
3. Backed up my old POP3 email acct to my Gmail acct. (More on this in a future post.)
4. Copied all my settings down for important Apps.
5. Backed up iCal, AddressBook, Jungle Disk, Transmit, Dreamweaver etc…
6. Backed up my Fonts collection (which is huge).
7. Backed ip ~/library/Application Support/Mail
8. Backed up ~/library/preference/com.apple.mail.plist
9. Backed up – CandyBar Icons
10. Backed up – MAMP settings and htdocs
11. Verified I didnt miss anything by going through each app and AppZapping as I went through them all.
12. Popped in Snow Leopard
13. Booted to CD/DVD (hold down “C” while booting).
14. Went through the prompts
15. Went to the Disk Utility and reformatted my main drive.
16. Installed Snow Leopard – I definitely noticed a quicker time to install.
17. Started to reinstall most of my apps.

The only two problems I seemed to encounter:

1. Firefox hated me, I think it was the Xmarks extension really.
2. AddressBook seems to take forever to open now.

I will be looking into a solution for AddressBook, but Firefox finally sorted itself out. Other than that I am loving the new Apples new Operating System – Snow Leopard.