When Snow Leopard is released, I don't want to restore my entire Time Machine backup from my external hard drive. I'd rather do a clean Erase and Install and then restore the stuff of my choice from the Time Machine backup. Is it possible to pick and choose what you restore instead of just restoring the entire Time Machine backup? I'd like to just restore my music library, photo library and a few other things, but not all the applications, etc... Does anybody know if this is possible and how to do it after a clean OS installation?
Bad move IMO. There's no reason to do an E&I, it's wasted effort. Macs aren't windoze-based PCs. Just ensure that you have a bootable, external HD (preferably FireWire, since it's 40-50% faster than USB 2 and designed for data transfers), with a bootable backup/clone before updating/upgrading, and ensure that it's bootable and works like the origina or one restored from a Time Machine backupl. That allows you to revert to the previous good state without having to reinstall anything. See these for details:
If you do an Erase & Install, then transfer from your TM backups, you have some options about what to restore, in general categories, but you can't pick and chose individual items. To leave some apps behind, you'd have to chose not to transfer any apps, then after you restart, use the normal Time Machine interface to restore the ones you want.
Assuming that you transfer users, that would also bring over all the items from the home folder(s), such as preferences and data files, related to the apps you did not move. While these won't cause any performance problems, they may take up more space than the apps.
Your best bet may be to start "thinning" out the stuff you don't want. I'd make a ToBeDeleted folder, with Applications, Preferences, and Application Support sub-folders (and others if needed). For a few apps you don't want, move them and their related files into the corresponding sub-folders, so if things go wrong, you know what to move back and where to put it. If nothing goes wrong for a while, then copy that folder to CD/DVD and delete it. Then do it again for another group of apps.
Being paranoid about this sort of thing, I'd be inclined to make a couple of copies of each CD/DVD, take one to my safe deposit box, and keep them for a long time.
Since my install of Leopard was somewhat buggy, I opted for the Erase path. It worked great. Once the clean install was done, I simply connected by Time Machine backup drive, a USB 2.0 LaCie, and then went o the Find and went back to my last backup. I selected my user folder, certain items in the Library and the entire Applications folder.
Rebooted and all is well, except I reinstalled Photoshop fresh. Email was all as I had last left it, imported very quickly. No bugginess, but it's like having a new computer, in terms of speed and even my Desktop is the same as before thanks to Time Machine.
So if you have any buggy behavior in your previous install, I'd recommend this method, otherwise I'd follow the standard install which seems to have improved.
I'd be interested to hear your upgrade experience once you are finished. Good luck!
Is Vaj's method what you would recommend to troubleshoot software icompatibility issues with Snow Leopard?
When I do a full restore from TM and after restart in Snow Leopard, I start seeing as many as 60(!) Software Update icons in my toolbar (and the everending rainbow wheel) so I need to isolate the offending app.
