Upgrade or Full Install

What's the difference between the "upgrade" disks and the "full install" disks? Are there certain situations where you can just upgrade and others where you must do a full install?
For instance, if I were running 10.1 and wanted to go to 10.4 Tiger, should I purchase upgrade or full install disks?

Quicksilver 2002 Mac OS X (10.1.x) 1GRam, cdrw

Posted on Nov 21, 2005 7:44 PM

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9 replies

Nov 24, 2005 8:43 PM in response to cornelius

Well Cornelius, that sort of answers my question. So are you saying if I had ANY operating system on the computer all I need is an upgrade? Or if I had any OSX on my computer all I need is an upgrade?
For instance, right now I've got OS 10.1.5 on my computer (G4 Quicksilver 2002). If I want to go to OS 10.3 Panther do I get an "upgrade" or "full install?"

Quicksilver 2002 Mac OS X (10.1.x) 1GRam, cdrw

Nov 25, 2005 12:45 AM in response to jomojett

Hi jomojett,

no, you have to use the retail full install disks. Upgrade disks only work the the immediate predecessor, so in order to use 10.3 upgrade CDs you have to have a bootable system 10.2.x installed.

Please be aware that using upgrade disks is illegal unless you received them from Apple together with a hardware purchasee. Upgrade disks are only intended for users who buy new hardware shortly after the announcement and launch of a new system version when the preinstalled system is still the old one.

Nov 25, 2005 9:06 AM in response to jomojett

At the risk of "piling one" let me affirm the other responses. Going from 10.1 to 1.2 or 10.3 is not an update but a full install of a new OS. After having Jaguar, or Panther on your computer you can then update to later versions up to 10.2.8 or 10.3.9 respectively.

Good luck.

corneliuus

PB G3 Pismo400, 100 GB 5400 Toshiba internal, 1 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Beige G3 OS 8.6

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Upgrade or Full Install

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