Apple today release Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Snow Leopard which addresses an issue with the Migration Assistant application in Mac OS X Snow Leopard that prevents transfer of your personal data, settings, and compatible applications from a Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard to a new Mac running Mac OS X Lion.
Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Snow Leopard is available via Software Update and also as a standalone installer.
More info and download link (714 KB) here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]
My experience is that the Lion Migration Assistant launches after you install Lion to help you migrate Snow Leopard settings and Apps to Lion not the other way around. I find the need for this last minute install confusing.
Thanks for the heads-up MDN. It’s a 312k download; takes very little time.
Wonder what’s up. My download was 731 kB.
(Please, guys, don’t forget the “B”. 312k is a meaningless term.)
Downloaded to Snow Leopard. It fired up the installer. Is this for “pre Lion migration” or “post Lion migration”? I was surprised to see it start up. Figured I not need it until Lion was installed.
I don’t use Migration Assistant. If I was doing a clean install of Lion (or using a new Mac for the first time), I would make a clone backup (of the internal startup volume) AND also have my Time Machine backup, on two separate external hard drives. After erasing the internal drive and installing Lion, I would use the clone backup as source and transfer data manually.
This is not a big deal for me; my internal startup volume is fairly small, and it is mostly dedicated to OS and app files (with a small user home folder). Most of my personal data is stored on an external FireWire drive. Since that “data drive” does not changed when I do a clean install of Lion, there is actually very little manual data migration required for me do a “clean install.”
Pretty much the same here.
I just never liked “upgrading” an OS… If something gets screwed up, you rarely figure out what caused it.
Sometimes it works flawlessly, for me anyway.. I’m always that one guy that has some setting/software/whatever that the Devs never tested.
My Gaming PC.. Used to run Vista. I got the Win 7 upgrade for free when i bought the Vista disc, but never installed it when i finally got the disc.
Some Vista service pack screwed with my Video cards (I run SLI)
It would not enable SLI, or detect it anymore.. no matter what i did.
Long story… But the Nvidia drivers i had were untested with the Service pack… and i had two options to fix the problem.
1. Burn down, start from scratch. Keep Vista.
2. “Run the W7 upgrade and it “should” fix it”… Thats a Quote from MS…
I chose 2, crossed fingers…. and it actually worked. Apparently I wasn’t the only one that ran into this problem.
W7 is actually usable… Not great… but Usable.
I did an “upgrade” install for Leopard to Snow Leopard. Before that, I did a clean install for Tiger to Leopard. This time, I think I’ll just try it the way Apple “suggests” (upgrade existing 10.6.8 system), but I’ll definitely clone it to an external drive just before downloading the Lion Installer from Mac App Store.
If something gets screwed up, I can just “clone the clone” back to the internal drive, and I’ll be back at square one, with my last 10.6.8 system. Or I can just do a clean install of Lion on the internal drive while booted from the clone.
And in case of an “epic fail” that causes loss of the clone during the clean install process, I’ll still have my Time Machine backup.
Apple’s Migration Assistant works very well.
I use it at customer sites as they buy new Macs to replace old. I work with over 100 Macs that have been upgraded this way for 10.2 to 10.3 to 10.4 to 10.5 to 10.6.
Yes there is the occasional problem but overall it works great and saves downtime for the customer.
Now one site that has many of the same model, I am going to wipe a test Mac and install everything fresh to create a new clean image. I will over time, wipe each Mac to give it a fresh image.
Either way works.
Update greedily sucks stiff monkey cox.
I’ve tried literally everything to get my 09 Macbook Pro to “find” my new July release 2011 Macbook Air… While the Air immediately finds the Macbook, the Macbook still cluelessly looks for Air, never finding it… And that’s as far as migration gets. Yes, all security measure are off, yes file sharing is on, yes spotlight is disabled, etc. etc. etc. etc. Thought for sure the update would fix things… Utterly useless waste of time, however.
Good job, Apple.