New Mac updates: wow!

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freitasm

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#15625 31-Aug-2007 16:26

Today I went out and bought the second iMac for this house. We do have a variery of machines here - Windows Vista, Windows Home Server, Windows Server, Windows XP, an old iMac G4. So we decided to upgrade the G4 to a more recent Intel Duo Core machine.

Being trollish, but I have to say that when I installed Windows XP on a brand new PC I had to download some updates, to a tune of about 200MB. But this Mac OS 10.4.8 here is downloading 450 MB of updates!

Holy computer, Batman!

450 MB of updates? And then Apple fans talk down Windows machines because of their updates...

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#84690 31-Aug-2007 16:38

Now that with AutoPatcher served with "cease to operate" letter from Microsoft... the AutoPatcher fans cried out brutality and throwing sticks and stones at Microsoft...

I understand the single-convenient AutoPatching technique, but how is it different from getting secure, up to date updates from Microsoft via Windows Update?

Anyhow... is it the new iMac with aluminum and glass slimmer design?

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freitasm

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#84691 31-Aug-2007 16:49

Nope, this is the white frame model...

barf

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#84696 31-Aug-2007 17:32

yes, the mac updates are atrocious !
can you imagine how many gigs classrooms of Macs use to update?!
I setup squid proxy at sites with many macs but a 2GB cache is not even enough to cache them all.

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freitasm

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#84699 31-Aug-2007 18:02

I just restarted the iMac and it showed another 60 MB of updates to download...

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#84704 31-Aug-2007 18:59

Macs.... ew....I had the (mis)fortune of using one all last week after I told a macfanboy friend about the Macintreacle (MacMini) I was about to buy until I played about with it. The higher speed lent one downloaded something (clean install) always and CRASHED far too often.

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#84710 31-Aug-2007 19:40

450MB + 60Mb = 510MB !!!!

You should seriously put up in your blog !

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#84711 31-Aug-2007 19:44

chiefie: Now that with AutoPatcher served with "cease to operate" letter from Microsoft... the AutoPatcher fans cried out brutality and throwing sticks and stones at Microsoft...

Well, it wasn't that no one knew what Autopatcher was doing was against the terms and conditions of Microsoft. So this is not a shocking news for me, a news which was expected for a long time. Look here for more.

Sorry to go off-topic :(

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#84726 31-Aug-2007 22:03

freitasm: Nope, this is the white frame model...

These were released September 2006 so hardly new! And what % ilife/iwork trial updates v system software?

freitasm

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#84729 31-Aug-2007 22:06

It's new because it's brand new and out of the original box...

Nowhere in my post I said it was the new model. It's not the new model, but for what we want it (my wife only uses the iMac a couple of hours a day), it is more than enough.

Why pay $1000 more for a new model when this one is a huge improvement over her original iMac G4 and does a damn good job?

spazz

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#84847 2-Sep-2007 01:49

Erm, far be it from me to stir, but I can't let that one go, Mauricio..

It isn't (at least, not for me) the size of the Windows Updates which Mac users complain about, it is the method by which Microsoft go about distributing them which is most irritating. I had the displeasure of using a PC the other day, and I couldn't believe that Windows Update kept popping up every 15 minutes telling me to restart my machine - and there was no way to stop this prompt - which counted down, for god's sake! felt like the days of the blaster worm virus.. At least Apple's Software Update app tells you exactly what components need updating (OSX, iLife, Quicktime, etc.) and lets you choose which ones to install, and guess what - if you quit this app, or even decide not to install any updates at all - it respects your decision, and won't just pop up again in 15 minutes, much less threaten you with a countdown timer!

Anyway. Glad I got that off my chest, lol.

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#84850 2-Sep-2007 04:10

spazz: Erm, far be it from me to stir, but I can't let that one go, Mauricio..

It isn't (at least, not for me) the size of the Windows Updates which Mac users complain about, it is the method by which Microsoft go about distributing them which is most irritating. I had the displeasure of using a PC the other day, and I couldn't believe that Windows Update kept popping up every 15 minutes telling me to restart my machine - and there was no way to stop this prompt - which counted down, for god's sake! felt like the days of the blaster worm virus.. At least Apple's Software Update app tells you exactly what components need updating (OSX, iLife, Quicktime, etc.) and lets you choose which ones to install, and guess what - if you quit this app, or even decide not to install any updates at all - it respects your decision, and won't just pop up again in 15 minutes, much less threaten you with a countdown timer!

Anyway. Glad I got that off my chest, lol.

My dear friend, Updates are meant to improve your system and most of the updates, yes, sometimes, most of the updates require restart - taken Windows or Linux or Mac. Take this example, if you do a kernel upgrade and don't restart, how will you know that the new kernel boots or not. Like Windows, now Linux too displays the prompt that you have to restart the system. And I have always postponed the Restart in Vista. Vista does have the option to postpone and it displays the popup. I think you haven't noticed that.

And for your information, Windows Update does tell you what updates are being installed, their description and also whether that update requires restart or not and respects your decision and after installing if that update requires update and a popup comes up stating that you have to restart and whether you have to restart now or after 'x' hours. It also states whether that updates is Recommended or Optional or Important.

Your explanation of Windows updates is not acceptable. I choose what updates I have to install , what not to install and also I check whether that update requires restart or not so that I could save my work.

spazz

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#84865 2-Sep-2007 10:29

Hahaha whoa okay, that was intense. My simple point is this:

During a lecture last Tuesday, a little box popped up on the screen (over the top of a powerpoint presentation) saying that updates had been installed and the computer would restart in <insert countdown timer here>. Now, my lecturer was, well, lecturing, and didn't notice the box, so in a couple of minutes the computer suddenly restarted, interrupting the presentation. Mac OSX updates would never be that deliberately intrusive. In fact, unlike Windows Update, it doesn't even begin downloading updates until you tell it to.

Anyway. This argument is pointless. Windows is an intrusive, annoying beast.

NB: I have no experience with Vista so I can't comment, but given XP's ubiquity, it's a more relevant comparison.

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#84867 2-Sep-2007 10:45

spazz, just so you know, Windows will only download and install updates if you tell it to. Whoever set up the computer originally would have told windows to download all updates and install them.

This is an optional feature, you can also disable all updates, download and notify, or even set a time at which the updates will install. So if this is happening to your lecturer, and it is his notebook, then he has only himself to blame.

This is the case with both XP and Vista, however with vista you can tell the updates to wait, after they have installed by postponing it for 10 minutes or four hours (if I remember correctly). However this is a real pain, as quite often I do not want it to update until I want it to restart. Which means I will get up in the morning and I will often find that it has restarted, and ubuntu being the default boot option, is asking for my password.

As for the number of updates that you receive on the MAC, 500MB is huge! I recently formatted a XP SP2 machine to factory default, and found that it needed 150MB of updates, and needed to be restarted two or three times to get all updates. Which is one or two too many times IMO.

freitasm

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#84870 2-Sep-2007 11:01

spazz:
During a lecture last Tuesday, a little box popped up on the screen (over the top of a powerpoint presentation) saying that updates had been installed and the computer would restart in . Now, my lecturer was, well, lecturing, and didn't notice the box, so in a couple of minutes the computer suddenly restarted, interrupting the presentation. Mac OSX updates would never be that deliberately intrusive. In fact, unlike Windows Update, it doesn't even begin downloading updates until you tell it to.

Anyway. This argument is pointless. Windows is an intrusive, annoying beast.

In Windows XP there's a dialog in the middle of the screen and an option Restart Now or Restart Later with a default 10 minutes postpone when Restart Later is selected.

In Windows Vista it's a notification near the bottom of the screen with Restart Now and Postpone. You can select the countdown for the notification again and options are 10 minutes up to 4 hours.

The lecturer must have clicked Restart Now because there's no automatic restart in these cases.

The only time there's an automatic restart is when an Unattended Automatic Update is installed. Notice that those are scheduled by default to run at 3am and therefore shouldn't be the case.

Nothing magic here. Someone clicked the wrong button...

Now saying Windows is an annoying intrusive beast because someone clicked the wrong button is stretching the truth, in my view. I think Apple Mac OS is an unintuitive OS, but you would disagree. And yes, we have two iMac computers here.

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#84906 2-Sep-2007 15:19

spazz: Hahaha whoa okay, that was intense. My simple point is this:

During a lecture last Tuesday, a little box popped up on the screen (over the top of a powerpoint presentation) saying that updates had been installed and the computer would restart in . Now, my lecturer was, well, lecturing, and didn't notice the box, so in a couple of minutes the computer suddenly restarted, interrupting the presentation. Mac OSX updates would never be that deliberately intrusive. In fact, unlike Windows Update, it doesn't even begin downloading updates until you tell it to.

Anyway. This argument is pointless. Windows is an intrusive, annoying beast.

NB: I have no experience with Vista so I can't comment, but given XP's ubiquity, it's a more relevant comparison.

Have a look here

I have to say that whoever the administrator is for that computer has to learn how to handle updates.

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