Newest Leopard update brings blue screen of death to Macs
Macs have long been able to brag about their stability in the face of Windows’ tendency to crash and burn at the slightest provocation. That day is no more. For one brief moment, Windows users get to point their finger and laugh. It seems the newest update to Mac’s operating system, OS 10.5.6, is inducing some very Windows-like problems into Mac’s utopian world.
This update was slated to be the last before the release of Snow Leopard. It fixes bugs and issues throughout the operating system, including solving some problems with using Adobe’s CS3 suite, fixing junk mail filtering issues in Mail, iChat bug fixes and more. Unfortunately, it also causes problems, and has been wreaking havoc all over the Mac universe since it was released into the wild this week.
By far the biggest complaint is that it hangs on installation. This means that for many people they will never get past the frozen or lagging installation process. Leaving people to start over and experience possible data loss is never something a company wants to do. Meanwhile, if you have customized your operating system set up at all, that will surely trigger the problems, as will having deleted some of the system files and other perfectly normal activities.
Will Mac users get an actual, Windows style, Blue Screen of Death? Not exactly, though they can expect potential issues with load times, configuration time outs, hanging or looping on installation, and other issues. Caution is advised in deciding to download this update. I know I usually allow Software Update in the System Preferences to go ahead and install operating system patches, but this time I plan to wait. I want to see if they issue a fix now, or if they use the ongoing glitch as a ploy to force a migration to Snow Leopard.
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December 17th, 2008
Where has it been said 10.5.6 is the last update to Leopard? Apple never says “This is the last update”
You must be assuming…What’s the point of saying that.
Just updated 2 days ago with no problems. I always do major updates by disconnecting all ext drives and closing all programs.
December 17th, 2008
I like to use the combo version—a lot less likely in my experience to have problems.
December 18th, 2008
I updated on tuesday, no problems so far on my i-mac 2.66 20″ 6 months old. Opened mail, everything o.k. Not running anything to fancy, ie: video editing, Photoshop. I disconnected all external devices and did a permissions fix before downloading update. Good Luck.
January 6th, 2009
This update is a nightmare. My macbook is freezing each time i try installing it. Nothing connected to the laptop other than the power supply, and I have not done any tweaks to the operating system. This is infuriating.