• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Yet another flaw with Snow Leopard

]My parents use the guest account for when my sister comes to visit them, and if they had been running Snow Leopard there is a possibility that all their data, including hundreds of photos and my father's music recordings, would have been lost. That would have been a very big deal for them.
.

then maybe your parents are taking the wrong approach - it would better to setup a regular account for your sister to use - that way each time she comes for a visit she doesn't have to setup up each time.

And for most part guest accoutns are seen as very insecure approach and while they are created by default with windows they are disabled by default.
 
Yes, it's minor. Not a lot of people create guest accounts on their machines in addition to their regular account. Sounds like you don't understand the complexity of the issue.
How is this issue complex? There is a bug in the code of the operating system which deletes a user's account data. It doesn't matter if it only affects a small minority of users, for the users it does affect it is a disastrous problem. This is not minor, if it was minor it wouldn't have made it onto tech news sites, or be placed as the third story on BBC News yesterday afternoon.

I agree. As a major Apple fanboy...this is a huge bug. I'm amazed anyone is trying to downplay it. It also makes me glad I haven't bothered upgrading. :lol:

Naw, bugs happen. When you upgrade anything regardless of who made it you run the risk of having an issue that slipped through the cracks because no matter how hard they try, all companies have finite QA resources. Not that I'm trying to downplay the issue here... this is a pretty bad one.
 
Again, SERVICE PACKS after the initial load.

And yet Snow Leopard is already at 10.6.2 with developers... :)

but that was always going to be on the cards anyway - for example Apple didn't enable ful 64bit support in the first release of Snow Leopard but was going to once things had settled a bit to reduce the amount of compatiblity issues that could arise in one hit.

Also the vendors whether Apple or Microsoft or Sun are usually developing the next release before the current one even hits the shelves.

In the past Microsoft released a new version of Windows and Office roughly 18 months to 2 years and the only way they could do that is if they are already well into development when the preceeding version is released.
 
Again, SERVICE PACKS after the initial load.

And yet Snow Leopard is already at 10.6.2 with developers... :)

but that was always going to be on the cards anyway - for example Apple didn't enable ful 64bit support in the first release of Snow Leopard but was going to once things had settled a bit to reduce the amount of compatiblity issues that could arise in one hit.

G5s out of the box in 2003 were 64bit chips capable of 16gigs of RAM and the final run had a theoretical upper limit of addressing 4 tbs of RAM. With the front side bus capable of running at half the clock of the chip.

It's the current Nehalem* 5500 Quad Xeons that are stuck with x86 instructions.

So what am I missing here?

Nehalem "Gainestown" which is the Xeons are not to be confused with the i7s which do contain the x64 instruction set
 
This is a huge bug that Apple obviously needs to fix.

That said, I have ZERO tolerance for people who upgrade an OS without a full backup of all their files. I used to have "little" tolerance, but since Time Machine I now have "zero" tolerance. They made backups SO simple that you now have to go out of your way to not do them!

Not using Time Machine is like car surfing. It's not a surprise when you eventually regret it!
 
And yet Snow Leopard is already at 10.6.2 with developers... :)

but that was always going to be on the cards anyway - for example Apple didn't enable ful 64bit support in the first release of Snow Leopard but was going to once things had settled a bit to reduce the amount of compatiblity issues that could arise in one hit.

G5s out of the box in 2003 were 64bit chips capable of 16gigs of RAM and the final run had a theoretical upper limit of addressing 4 tbs of RAM. With the front side bus capable of running at half the clock of the chip.

It's the current Nehalem* 5500 Quad Xeons that are stuck with x86 instructions.

So what am I missing here?

Nehalem "Gainestown" which is the Xeons are not to be confused with the i7s which do contain the x64 instruction set

That I'm talking about the full 64bit Software Support
 
Interesting read in these posts about Snow Leopard. I have a three year old eMac and as such I can't upgrade to Snow Leopard beyond the Leopard 10.5.8 I'm currently running. Snow Leopard is for Intel Macs only.

However, I'm considering getting a new iMac in the new year or spring and hopefully these little bugs will be ironed out by then.
 
As a Mac user since the 1980s and someone who has serviced Macs for about a decade, I'm amazed that people find these types of things note worthy (above and beyond the issue itself). Frankly, people who run out and upgrade their systems within the first couple months of a new OS release (or install updates within the first two weeks of those releases) have a name from me... beta testers.

None of my clients update their systems until I give them the all clear. And I watch forums for issues (often time specific to certain models) to catch bad updates before they can cause problems for my clients.

As for the severity of this bug... there was an iTunes installer bug that would erase any additional volumes attached to your Mac with names that included a space in them. Apple ended up giving many of those people effected by this bug recovery software to get their data back.

Apple is run by people... people (no matter how good their intentions) make mistakes. People who believe Apple is flawless are asking for problems. I take care of tons of Macs, so I see more of these types of things than an average user (and it is my job to make sure my clients avoid them), but anyone who has auto update on is asking for issues.

Again, SERVICE PACKS after the initial load.

And yet Snow Leopard is already at 10.6.2 with developers... :)
And again, this stuff only seems odd if you haven't been following Apple for a long time or have a short memory for these things.

When Apple released 10.3 they had to rush out a number of updates very quickly. In fact their first update (10.3.1) was rushed out so fast that they forgot to note the Darwin version number change (which should have been 7.1, but was still labeled 7.0).

The real issue Apple has always faced is that the people doing the beta testing aren't a broad enough cross section of average users on average hardware. So many issues just aren't going to be found until the software is out in the wild.

Another example of this was an update that knocked out the ethernet ports on some older systems... the update seemed straight forward enough at the time, but was a major headache within 48 hours after it's release.

To date I only have a single client running 10.6, and that is because she just bought a new 17" MacBook Pro. I've already turned off guest access for her system, but for the rest of my clients wanting to upgrade their existing systems, I've told them we're looking at mid November. :shifty:
 
Wow. After going by way of Detroit, you almost zero in on my point. You're one of the *MINORITY* of users who sets up a Guest account.
I addressed your point in my very first response; this is a major bug for those people that experience it. Losing all your files is a major bug. It doesn't matter if it only happens to five people or five million, it is one of the most damaging things a computer can ever do. I'm something of a Windows fanboy, but there is no way that I would ever dismiss a bug like this in Windows as minor just because it only affected a minority of users.

Don't bullshit with me.
I don't believe I ever have.

It was either DOS 4.0 or 5.0 that had the lifespan of a fruit fly. It had barely hit the market when replaced.
Quite possibly. Tell me, has anyone ever used MS-DOS 4.0 as a media/work hub and have it randomly destroy all their files?

Then, when you get into Windows, 95 was a royal PITA, unless you consider a pile of floppy diskettes for installation to be utter joy.
You're blaming Microsoft because you didn't have a CD-drive? :lol: Deary me.

Windows 95, now on an amazing new piece of technology called a Compact Disc!

98 was better, but like damn near everything Microsoft produces, the user was better off to wait until SP 1 and SP2 were out.
Absolutely. :) Only techy people should upgrade to a new OS upon release, the general public is always advised to stay away until the first service pack. Even Windows 7, which was amazingly stable for a beta, should be avoided by the general public for the first few months to ensure that it remains as good as it seems to be.

XP was something MS did very well, but again, SP1 and SP2.
SP2. XP was awfully buggy upon release, something the Vista bashers quickly forgot after SP2.

I notice that you conveniently left out Millennium, which was a royal piece of shit.
I didn't conveniently leave it out, I was listing the Windows versions which I've used and since ME was a royal piece of shit I only used it once for ten minutes on my cousin's PC. ME was a mistake, an attempt to implement some of the features from Windows 2000 back into the old 9x kernel, and an attempt to grab a quick buck before the release of XP the following year.

Vista? Please :rolleyes: The only people who I've ever heard report "satisfaction" with Vista were I/T types who tweaked the living shit out of it until it would actually run.
Vista runs just fine, and as someone who has dealt with hundreds of complaints from customers on the issue the three biggest I've come across are 1) it is different from XP, 2) driver/software compatibility (which is partly a third party problem) and 3) the user account control. In the year that I used it as my primary OS Vista only crashed on me twice. That's not to say that Vista is a great OS, it is a slight improvement over XP if you have powerful enough hardware to run it, but it is not the abject failure of an OS that some make it out to be. If it was then Windows 7, the tech media darling, wouldn't be so heavily based on it.

Oh, and while we're at it, what about the CONSTANT THREAT OF SECURITY HOLES with each system from 98 on up.
What security holes? Ever since I've had my own PCs I have never been infected by a virus and I don't even use any a/v software! And yes, I do download an antivirus scanner every three months or so to make sure and all I ever have is tracking cookies. Oh no, not tracking cookies! :rolleyes:

The biggest security hole Windows has is its users, and MS's attempt to protect against it, the User Account Control, is hated by most people. They can't win.

So, considering the track record of MS, this isn't *that bad* of a problem. Yes, it's serious, but not the "One point twenty-one JIGGAWATTS!!!!!!" serious you're making it out to be for every single user.
Now you're just making shit up, which I'm fine with so long as you don't put words in my mouth which I never said. I'm not making it out to be any more of a problem than it is, I'm saying that it is a problem which affects a small minority of users and is a major problem to those people. As far as problems go it is a big one and it a priority for patching.

Apple is run by people... people (no matter how good their intentions) make mistakes. People who believe Apple is flawless are asking for problems. I take care of tons of Macs, so I see more of these types of things than an average user (and it is my job to make sure my clients avoid them), but anyone who has auto update on is asking for issues.
QFT

An Operating System is a massive undertaking involving years of work, and it is easy for a flaw like this to be released as part of a finished product. I'm not bashing Apple for releasing a flaw, but I would compliment them if they manage to implement a fix for it quickly.
 
Again, SERVICE PACKS after the initial load.

And yet Snow Leopard is already at 10.6.2 with developers... :)

but that was always going to be on the cards anyway - for example Apple didn't enable ful 64bit support in the first release of Snow Leopard but was going to once things had settled a bit to reduce the amount of compatiblity issues that could arise in one hit.

Also the vendors whether Apple or Microsoft or Sun are usually developing the next release before the current one even hits the shelves.

In the past Microsoft released a new version of Windows and Office roughly 18 months to 2 years and the only way they could do that is if they are already well into development when the preceeding version is released.
I've worked in MS environments since 95 and switched to a Mac for my home machine earlier this year. I've worked in network support and PC support and anyone who has done so knows that the running joke with MS products is that the true Beta Testers buy version 1.0, while everyone else waits until SP2 is released.
 
And yet Snow Leopard is already at 10.6.2 with developers... :)

but that was always going to be on the cards anyway - for example Apple didn't enable ful 64bit support in the first release of Snow Leopard but was going to once things had settled a bit to reduce the amount of compatiblity issues that could arise in one hit.

Also the vendors whether Apple or Microsoft or Sun are usually developing the next release before the current one even hits the shelves.

In the past Microsoft released a new version of Windows and Office roughly 18 months to 2 years and the only way they could do that is if they are already well into development when the preceeding version is released.
I've worked in MS environments since 95 and switched to a Mac for my home machine earlier this year. I've worked in network support and PC support and anyone who has done so knows that the running joke with MS products is that the true Beta Testers buy version 1.0, while everyone else waits until SP2 is released.

yes the problem is that some people want to jump in the when the latest and greatest comes out and don't think of themselves as beta testers :)

I will confess though courtesy of a Technet subscription I'm running Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 release versions.

Both are quite stable and Microsoft has vastly improved the UAC in Windows 7.

Now it's probably time I started to play with Snow Leopard - I've loaded in to my Mini but haven't actually touched it.
 
^^ The real crux of the issue is rationalizing the purchase. My eMac works flawlessly and I'm very happy with it. I admit that I just really like the look of the 20 and 24 inch iMacs and can see myself appreciating a larger screen than my eMac's 17 inches when I get into playing with images in Photoshop and Illustrator.
 
I've been using 10.6 for a few weeks and haven't encountered any bugs yet. On the other hand, I haven't really noticed any differences compared to 10.5 yet either. Still, it only cost $30.
 
Wow, that seems like a pretty big issue. I've been running Windows 7 Ultimate Release Candidate.for about 4 months now and have yet to run into a major issue. Got a program that can't run in 64-bit environments? Load up Virtual PC into XP Mode and you're good to go. I plugged my printer, joystick and mp3 player in and they were instantly recognized and installed. The only glitch I had was my sound drivers would disable themselves from time to time, but a new driver update from Creative solved that. I'll definitely be purchasing 7 Ultimate when my RC license runs out in March.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top