High Sierra, OS 10.13, will be released on September 25th; How to get Prepared

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Just saw this:

https://www.macworld.com/article/3199825/macs/macos-high-sierra-features-specs-pricing-faq.html

So, High Sierra, OS 10.13, will be released on Monday, September 25th. While it might seem "simple" to upgrade, it is imperative to take the following crucial steps before upgrading:

1. Go through a complete disk cleanup/maintenance/repair process prior to upgrading. Myself, besides doing disk cleanup on a daily basis, I would run Onyx and TechTool Pro for those tasks.

2. Backup, backup, backup!!!! So many folks do not do that before upgrading, which is really not smart. Myself, I always use SuperDuper! to create a bootable backup/clone.

3. And equal in importance, insure that any third party applications one has are compatible with the new OS. Once again, so many folks neglect to do this, and then they have problems. Myself, there are 6 critical third party applications that I have which must be compatible:

1. Onyx
2. TechTool Pro
3. SuperDuper!
4. Office 2016
5. 1Password
6. Logitech Control Center (for my Logitech mice).

From what I have read, V15.35 of Office 2016 is already compatible with High Sierra, and I have V15.37. But there have been no updates yet for any of the other products on my list. For the last two Mac upgrades (to El Capitan and Sierra), I had to wait until the first update of each one came out, as the necessary updates for Oynx and TechTool Pro were not released before each of them initially came out. That's fine with me, as there was nothing that I absolutely had to have with them. The same is true of High Sierra.

So, make sure to take ALL those steps before upgrading. Then, the next step is to decide how to upgrade. One choice is to "upgrade in place". That is, have High Sierra just run "against" your current system to do the upgrade. While that might be the simplest and "quickest" way, it can be loaded with problems. The other way is to Erase and Format one's internal drive, do a clean, fresh, "virgin" installation of High Sierra, and then use Migration Assistant to "migrate"/copy stuff from your backup. That is the way I have gone in the past. That process for me is actually very straight forward:

1. Prior to steps 1 and 2 above, I download the "Install MacOS High Sierra" file (or however it is named) from Apple's site, and then make another copy of it in another location.

2. After doing steps 1 & 2 above, I re-boot my Mac from the SuperDuper! backup.

3. From the backup, I run Disk Utility there to Erase and Format my internal drive (SSD in my case).

4. Next, I launch the file "Install MacOS High Sierra", and proceed with a fresh, clean, "virgin" installation of High Sierra.

5. Finally, I use Migration Assistant to "migrate"/copy stuff from my backup. I then restart my Mac from its internal drive/SSD, and I am in business.

I do this for both of my Macs, and it has always led to success.
 
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As a follow up, I have been in touch with the folks at Micromat (the company which produces Tech Tool Pro), and an upgrade for Tech Tool Pro will definitely not be available for a while. In fact, they mentioned that Apple has not yet fully documented the new APFS File System, which is an integral part of High Sierra. I would thus imagine that other developers are struggling with this also. Of course, the amount of "struggle" depends upon the application. But for 4 of the other critical ones I mentioned (1Password, Onyx, SuperDuper!, and Logitech Control Center), I suspect upgrades will be somewhat "slow" in coming.

Looks like I'll again not upgrade until at least when 10.13.1 is released.
 

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