Last week we discussed the Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger” installation process, up to the point where the new system is written onto your computer. Once the process is complete, your Mac is automatically restarted. Congratulations! You’ve been “Tiger-ized”. The first thing you’ll see is an entertaining “Welcome” movie. What follows is dependent upon the type of installation you selected.

If you selected the “Upgrade” option that simply installs Tiger over your previous system, you’ll see that your Mac still knows who you are, where you live, and how you connect to the internet. All your personal data is still intact and accessible by the new system. Other than the Dashboard icon in your Dock, and the Spotlight icon in the far right corner of your menu bar, your Mac will look just like it did before you upgraded. But do not be deceived – there is much wonderment afoot behind the scenes.

You’ll want to try out Spotlight search. The first time you click the Spotlight icon, however, you’ll get a dialogue box beneath it informing you that Spotlight is indexing your hard drive(s). Hard drives are sometimes referred to as “volumes” by Mac OS X. Anyway, Spotlight searching is not available until your drive(s) is indexed. Do not be discouraged if the Spotlight indexing message initially estimates several hours until the indexing is complete. This time estimation drops dramatically, especially if you leave it alone. On my 120GB hard drive it took less than half an hour. My suggestion is to get a cup of tea, peruse the scant (but useful) user’s manual, and let the Spotlight indexing “do it’s thing”. Then you can search to your heart’s content.

If you chose the “Archive and Install” option, the installer built a new System for you, and automatically moved your personal data from the old System to where it should be within the hierarchy of the new System. It placed your old System files and old versions of system applications in a folder called “Previous System”. Depending upon the amount of “third party” software previously installed on your computer, you may be able to just Trash the Previous System folder. If you’re a “power user”, you may have to go in to the Previous System folder and manually move application preferences and other required files to their proper places in the new System to retain the functionality you previously enjoyed.

More Tiger next time.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski