Once the install is completed, your Mac will reboot and you should see either the new Lion login interface, or, if you are the only user on your Mac, a short animation about the new scrolling behavior in Lion, like so:Ĭongratulations! You’ve installed Lion while simultaneously making sure that your machine is as clean and compatible as possible.
For us, it took about thirty minutes for Lion to fully install. The Lion install process is just stupidly simple: you aren’t called upon to do anything but wait. When it’s finished downloading and the statusbar goes disappears, close all your running programs, open the Lion install file, accept Apple’s EULA and then click “Install.” Your machine will restart, and the Lion install process will begin.įrom here, everything’s easy. Be patient: this file is 3.4GB, and takes a while to download.
Once you buy Lion, an install file will open up in your dock, complete with a download status bar. Alternatively, you can just click this link. Just open the App Store under Applications and do a search for Lion. Pop the installer in, power down your Macintosh and unplug your backup drive, it would be a cryin’ shame if you accidentally installed over your backup. Make sure everything boots up, poke around a bit, make sure everything seems to be working. Once CCC is done, reboot your Mac with your external drive still connected, holding down the option key to boot from the backup drive. Now, depending on the size of your hard drive, you’ve got a chance to watch either the standard, or extended version of Lord of the Rings. Just remember to make your backup drive bootable, you will have to completely wipe your destination drive. To create a bootable backup of your main drive there is only one totally free, easy-to-use choice, Carbon Copy Cloner, and it’s push one button simple. Upgrading to Lion through the App Store is uncharted territory, and while it’s unlikely anything will go wrong, why take chances? Let’s make a bootable backup of your main drive just in case. Just be careful to know what you’re deleting. Give it a whirl, and you may be just as surprised as we were to learn that your ‘Downloads’ directory is taking up half your hard drive. Fortunately, our friends at Omni Group have a utility just for that. Our hard drives always seem to be shrinking, and it’s often hard to tell where most of that space goes. If you have an older system that's not supported by the latest version of Mac OS X, then you should seriously consider upgrading to the latest version.After you’ve cleaned up all your redundant files, now it’s time to ‘sweep’ your disk.
However, while it may seem like an unnecessary expense, it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to Mac OS X Lion. The retail version costs a bit more but comes with a manufacturer warranty.
Apple offers the upgrade free of charge to customers who purchase the most recent version of the Mac OS X and also provides free technical support for the first year. If you're looking to upgrade your Mac OS X machine, or just want to try out the latest version before switching to a different brand or model, you might want to consider upgrading to the latest version, which is available in both a free and a retail version. In addition, the Mac OS X Lion updates the Mac's security and privacy protection with various protection levels that can be configured individually, allowing users to choose the level of security they want to achieve. The new version boasts a built-in firewall that protects against these attacks, preventing unauthorized access to the Mac's files. With the previous operating system, Mac OS X was prone to being attacked from viruses and spyware. Users who have the latest Mac OS X machine will find that Lion offers a number of nice changes and features, but perhaps the most noticeable are the improvements to OS X security and privacy protection. The new and improved applications feature a new look and feel, a new user interface, new widgets, a faster and more efficient desktop, and improved performance and security on the Mac. OS X Lion comes with many new and updated applications, a new Finder application, and has been designed to be faster and more stable than any previous release. Like all other major releases, this one also has some nifty features. OS X Lion is the latest release of Mac OS X, which is the seventh major version of OS X, designed primarily for the Apple Mac computer.