[Mac+]

Well, I have succumbed and installed Panther. It is *great* (kicks self for not having done this earlier ).

However, I'm in the mood to have a completely clean computer. I want to wipe the 20GB HD and do a fresh install.

I have an external HD (that I have partioned poorly - my next project is to move the data off it somewhere and then repartition it) and I figure I could just drag my home folder over there, along with my Applications folder.

Then I can reinstall Panther onto a fresh HD.

Once this is done, I would then like to drag back the relevant files into ~/Library/Application Support, for example. I have so much crap in that folder that I want to start afresh and prune away any apps and associated files that I no longer need.

Btw - what the hell is meant to be in the "Address Book Plug-Ins" folder? (don't say Address Book plug-ins ... or is this folder some holdover from 10.1 or 10.2 perhaps? )

Is this the right way to go about it - are there any other files or processes I should be aware of before I commit to this task?

TIA.
Mac+

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Mac+ I have an external HD (that I have partioned poorly - my next project is to move the data off it somewhere and then repartition it) and I figure I could just drag my home folder over there, along with my Applications folder.

Unless you are fairly comfortable with the terminal and NetInfo, you might not want to move your home folder. It's certainly possible, as there are instructions on several sites. However, a number of programs and services may break mysteriously that you'll have to track down and try to deal with.

"Clean" installs are overrated anyway.

An "Archive and Install" process will do just as good unless you need to reformat your drive. This option will lump *everything* but your /Applications and /Users (if you choose) folder into a "Previous System" directory. Unless you're absolutely cramped for space and don't have enough for this regular install, I would strongly recommend this over the tedious process of backing up and reinstalling everything with a clean install.

The Address Book Plug-ins folder, as you might have guessed, is for Address Book plug-ins like this.

[ulothrix]

I just did the erase and install (after back-up of course). This has been the best improvement in my system performance ever.

I think I had damaged some items after apache de-installations and other aborted upgrades. There were also some start-up items that I thought did stuff, but they no longer exist now, perhaps remnants of demo software and the like.

Since this fresh installation the Mac has not crashed once. Prior, I had one or two fully crashed sessions a week.

We are very happy -- I think it was worth the 3-4 hours of effort to re-import mail, addresses, and certain fonts.

[Mac+]

Just did the Erase and Install - great opportunity to prune the HD of unwanted clutter and junk. Not that my TiBook was running poorly or crashing - but all those un-needed files were taking up space and causing me "untidy" mental grief. I had to do this!

Reinstalling only the apps I need to use now - and keeping a sharp eye on what gets added to my ~/Library/Application Support folder.

Still to reinstall Live and Office v.X. Will not load Entourage this time though - Address Book, Mail, iCal and StickyBrain do that for me instead!

Imported database files and preference files for Address Book, Mail, Safari, StickyBrain 3.0 (love that application - one of the main reasons I updated to 10.3) and other apps - all going well so far!

Also, nice to have the 20GB HD show me 12.77Gb of free space again - as opposed to the 758MB I was running perilously close to for the past few days. (Mind you, all documents, work files and iLife data are now stored on the external HD.) update: Damn - just the BigFishAudio LOOPS by themselves (part of the Live package) take up 600+MB and the FreePlay music loops (part of .Mac) take up 1.8GB!!

Next job: saving my documents from that external HD before repartitioning it.