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Level 1

19 points

What to consider BEFORE an OSX reinstall?

My iMac (late 2009; 4GB memory, OS X 10.9.4) quite often seems to be slower than it used to be. I assume that one of the reasons for this slowness is that over the years whenever I updated the OS X (from OS X 10.4 or so) or got a new computer, I always took over the settings from earlier versions. Hence I thought a totally fresh re-installation of OS X (Maverick) would possibly speed things up again.

Is this assumption correct? And if correct, what issues do I have to consider such that I do not loose my data (which i backup through TimeMachine and much of it is in the cloud).

Or are there other methods to get back to "old speeds"?

Thanks in advance for your advice. Cheers, Veit

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3), iPhone 4S with iOS7

Posted on Jul 24, 2014 8:35 AM

18 replies

Old Toad

Level 10

207,565 points

Jul 24, 2014 3:53 PM in response to vburger

The installer for MissingSyncMounting is supposed to have an installer feature. That would be the best route. This MacRumors webpage describes removing it: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=440590

From what I've found HP IO is associated with an HP printer.

What you asked about would be cleaner but would require much more work that installing what you don't need. You'd have to do:

1 - make a backup of your entire hard drive.k

2 - boot into the Recovery volume so you can erase the HD with Disk Utility and then reinstall Mavericks.

3 - using Migration Assistant bring back your documents, i.e. home folder, to the new installation.

Frankly that is more work that I'd want to take on.

A little Googling on those items will tell you how to uninstall them if you find they're not needed.

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Jul 24, 2014 4:04 PM in response to vburger

You've got Awesome Screenshot installed, which is a known source of ads being injected in other people's web pages. See:

Screenshot extension injects ads

I'd recommend getting rid of it. That probably won't have any effect on the performance problems, though.

(Fair disclosure: The Safe Mac is my site, and contains a Donate button, so I may receive compensation for providing links to The Safe Mac. Donations are not required.)

Eric Root

Level 10

684,045 points

Jul 25, 2014 8:33 AM in response to vburger

Sophos Uninstaller

What to consider BEFORE an OSX reinstall?