Mavericks clean install?

All,
I'm not having any problems with my 2011 MBP but Mavericks would be my 3rd OS installed on this computer. Would you guys recommend a clean install or just let it update like normal?

Thanks
Alan

It's too early to tell what the upgrade process will be like but I imagine that, as with most releases, the upgrade process will be smooth. Wait until it's release for more info though - we know just as much as you do about Mavericks.

Thank you Vansmith for your appropriate and informative response.

I've been upgrading my iMac from Snow Leopard to Lion to Mountain Lion and I'll probably do an upgrade to Mavericks..

If you have built up enough cruft along the way..doing a clean install will give you a clean start as long as you have all your documents backed up and a way of re-installing all the applications you use..

I always do a clean install. There are just TOO many files that can get disorganized and cause unnecessary slowdowns on the new "upgrade" instead of a new install. It would be one thing if the OS was installed on top of an existing OS, but with OSX, the OS gets installed, and then the installer picks up all the old files and dumps it on top of the newly installed OS.

Plus, there's something I enjoy about having to work through a clean OS.

I generally do an upgrade install. I will admit though that a clean install with a restore from Time Machine is probably the best way. The only time I had a problem with an upgrade install was going from Leopard to Snow Leopard and wound up doing a clean install and recovering my data from Time Machine.

When it becomes available, download and burn to a USB thumb stick, backup to an external drive, format the drive and a clean install using Migration Assistant to bring everything across or cloning if not an SSD.

Large suites such as Office and Adobe generally require re-activation after migrating.

I've heard some people who say they do a clean install every time. I got my iMac in 2011 and have only had to do a clean install once when every attempt to upgrade to 10.8.3 from 10.8 failed and resulted in the system being unable to boot without safe mode. I backed up all of my files to my 1TB ext. HDD and then did the clean installation. I really hope that I don't have to do it for Mavericks because I keep a lot of large documents that take a lot of time to copy them to another drive (or compress them to be copied).

I generally do a clean install as well. Having lived through a number of releases and seeing some of the fallout from people doing straight upgrades (on this forum), I think it's a best bet.

I recommend first running AppFresh to ensure that all your non Mac App Store apps are up to date, then use SuperDuper! or CCC to make a bootable clone and go about doing your clean install. This way, you can always revert back at a moments notice if things go south.

After problems (minor and likely due to my incessant tinkering under the hood back then) on my first Mac going from 10.4 to 10.5 and again from 10.5 to 10.6; I also, have been doing clean installs on my Macs after making a SD! backup.

On the other hand, using my wife's MB as a guinea pig, it has gone through just the upgrade install from 10.4 to 10.5 to 10.6 to 10.7. It's still running without any issues. It won't run 10.8 or I'd have done that one too.

If the Mac is already running well I usually do an upgrade install. Saves me the trouble of finding all that software again. There are two exceptions that prompt me to do a clean install::

1. If I am experiencing unexplained slowdowns or other performance issues
2. It has been a significant amount of time since my last clean install. By that I mean a couple of years rather than the six months some of my Windows buddies use as a yardstick. I recently did a clean install due to a problem I created.with the hard drive. Prior to that I had not done a clean install since Snow Leopard I think.

By that I mean a couple of years rather than the six months some of my Windows buddies use as a yardstick.

Click to expand...

LOL. I can't ever remember doing an upgrade install from one Windows version to the next as it just isn't worth the trouble trying to sort everything out. Of course the activation thing always winds having to be done but that's the easy part.