More details on Mac OS X 10.6.1 fixes and enhancements

[AppleInsider]

The first maintenance release for Apple's new Snow Leopard operating system will deliver a number of fixes and tweaks focusing on Mail, networking, Bluetooth, Flash and more, according to additional details obtained by AppleInsider.

The first external pre-release beta of the software, labeled Mac OS X 10.6.1 build 10B503, began making its way to Apple's broad Apple Developer Connection community Thursday evening in the form of a 74.1MB delta image.

Although the update does not provide any new features or sweeping changes, it does address some problem areas with fixes that will likely be welcomed by users. Among the core focus areas for the first round of tests are Bluetooth, the Dock, Mail, printing services, Software Update, and System Preferences.

Once released, Mac OS X 10.6.1 should allow users to delete manually-entered DNS values for DHCP configurations via the system's Network Diagnostics, people familiar with the software say. Meanwhile, a couple of SMTP-related tweaks to Mail.app will tackle issues with blank server responses and upgrades on email accounts that require authentication.

Also planned are a number of printer-related enhancements. For example, local Bluetooth printers should properly connect to Snow Leopard-based Macs on startup. Additionally, printer drivers for both Bonjour and USB printers will be delivered over Software Update, while generic drivers should become visible from printer driver list.

Following this week's news that the retail version of Mac OS X 10.6 bundled an older, less secure version of Adobe Flash, those familiar with with the first builds of 10.6.1 say the update will bump the plug-in to version 10.0.32.18.

Other focal areas of Mac OS X 10.6.1 include graphics drivers, wireless WAN cards and the DVD player. In all, 11 specific issues with Mac OS X 10.6 have been addressed thus far by 10.6.1. Only one know issue, related to log entries, was reportedly noted in documentation accompanying the beta software.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Sgt Zeppelin]

I wonder if the graphic driver work includes support for cards other than the 9400M to use hardware-accelerated H.264 playback...because that would be fantastic.

[georgetang]

Hey guys,

I don't find the new Expose as useful as before.

I dislike the thick blue glow highlight, and the name of the window underneath

I miss the old Expose where each window would be at the respective size when minimize, and makes easier to spot, and whenever I want to know what the application windows is, I'll just hover my mouse over and it'll highlight like being under a spotlight with the name of the window over.

I know this new Expose has the intension as many would like to see an Table Mac... But can't we have the option to turn it off, or turn it back the way, people are used to...?

Also, I have put my application folder on the dock, and as stack, is find for me... not perfect, but on the Snow Leopard, the size of the icon are freaking huge, Apple, seriously, I"m not blind, and I believe you made it big, also for the intension of a Table Mac, but c'mon... can't you give people the choice of sizing the icons? Like the way you do, with the icons on the dock?

Another thing I've notice that Expose and Space doesn't work as smooth as it was on Leopard, and the Safari actually crash more than it was before, and the Top Site sometimes opens like MOSAIC, there's something wrong with the new graphic engine in Snow Leopard.

I look forward to someone share the scripts to tweak SL...

Otherwise, I might consider downgrading to Leopard...

[vandil]

It's good to see that, despite launching Snow Leopard last Friday, Apple's team is hard at work on 10.6.1 already.

[dualie]

"Once released, Mac OS X 10.6.1 should allow users to delete manually-entered DNS values for DHCP configurations via the system's Network Diagnostics...."

Are you SURE this shouldn't read "...should allow users to manually delete DNS values for DHCP configurations..."?

[lkrupp]

Originally Posted by georgetang

Hey guys,

I don't find the new Expose as useful as before.

Otherwise, I might consider downgrading to Leopard...

You need to contact the Safari 4.x "put the tabs back on top" crowd. They can fill you in on how they're doing with that project. Stay on 10.5 forever. No one cares.

[Haggar]

How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.

What about the ability to use Time Machine with FileVault enabled, without having to log out first?

The Finder automatically remembering view settings for each window?

[MacTel]

Originally Posted by vandil

It's good to see that, despite launching Snow Leopard last Friday, Apple's team is hard at work on 10.6.1 already.

I'd bet once SL went golden they started work on 10.6.1.

Either way, 10.6.1 will be much welcomed with stability and printer driver issues addressed. This is what we should expect though with the RTM version.

[cmf2]

Originally Posted by Haggar

How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.

What about the ability to use Time Machine with FileVault enabled, without having to log out first?

The Finder automatically remembering view settings for each window?

I think bug fixes come first. While an uninstaller would be nice, leaving those files on the computer won't really hurt anything and there are plenty of third party unistallers available.

[kasakka]

Originally Posted by Haggar

How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.

What's left behind is mostly just preference files so you can get your settings should you decide to reinstall the program. These take pretty much no space so it's not like they'll clog the system. It would be nice if Apple provided an option to delete these. I like how AppTrap asks you if you want to delete the leftover files as well.

Hopefully they'll fix the slight performance issues with Spaces etc.

[cmf2]

Originally Posted by lkrupp

You need to contact the Safari 4.x "put the tabs back on top" crowd. They can fill you in on how they're doing with that project. Stay on 10.5 forever. No one cares.

Actually a lot of people care, and I'm sure Apple is watching to see how people react to the new expose look. I'm still undecided on the change, expose making certain programs bigger is really confusing. I'm kind of hoping that Apple offers a choice of Expose style. The Safari tabs on top was only in one beta while expose has been around for a long time, and many people did like the old style. No need to be rude and say "no one cares" especially when you only mean "I don't care and only my opinion matters".

[avatar1632]

Originally Posted by Haggar

How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.

What about the ability to use Time Machine with FileVault enabled, without having to log out first?

The Finder automatically remembering view settings for each window?

Uninstall: use AppZapper or the like. Most programs -- anything that's just a drag-and-drop into /Applications, actually -- don't put stuff all over the place, other than the stray plist (and AppZapper finds those easily).

TimeMachine with FileVault: Disregarding the underlying "I want" syndrome here, if you want to understand why this simply isn't possible you should read up on it. Trying to do a backup of a FileVault directory while it's in use is like trying to change a flat tire on a moving vehicle when you can't see what you're doing. The only alternative is to copy the data unencrypted to the Time Machine disk and, presumably, you don't want that. Additionally, since FileVault doesn't use a sparsebundle, but a sparseimage, Time Machine would have to back up your entire home directory every time a single bit of data or metadata changed -- not good.

In lieu of FileVault, I'd recommend you check out Espionage. It allows encryption of individual folders and supports the new "sparse bundles" so Time Machine only backs up the "bands" that have changed, unlike sparse images where the entire image file is backed up when one byte changes. Don't worry, it doesn't use any proprietary encryption schemes; you can mount the Espionage-created images on any OS X machine (probably within some limitations, but they have nothing to do with Espionage itself), even when the image uses encryption higher than what OS X normally uses. Presumably, you don't really need your entire home directory encrypted but instead only pieces of it.

[poke]

Originally Posted by cmf2

Actually a lot of people care, and I'm sure Apple is watching to see how people react to the new expose look. I'm still undecided on the change, expose making certain programs bigger is really confusing. I'm kind of hoping that Apple offers a choice of Expose style. The Safari tabs on top was only in one beta while expose has been around for a long time, and many people did like the old style. No need to be rude and say "no one cares" especially when you only mean "I don't care and only my opinion matters".

I love the new Expose. The old version was next to useless because the window organization was so unpredictable. Oragnizing the windows and including minimized windows has made window management on OS X much easier (albeit still not perfect).

[PXT]

Originally Posted by Haggar

How about real support for uninstalling applications and all the components that are placed in several different folders on the hard drive? Even Apple's own applications install things in several different locations on the hard drive. So "just drag the application to the trash" does not really remove everything.

What about the ability to use Time Machine with FileVault enabled, without having to log out first?

The Finder automatically remembering view settings for each window?

Absolutely agree that all three of those are desirable.

The one about a proper uninstaller would help with Mac-rot which does exist and, besides, the OS should be in charge of its Apps at all times anyway. If I ask my OS to make an app disappear, it should disappear.

[tschunde]

apple also fucked up my mbp 2,33 c2d superdrive about 1 1/2 years ago with a firmware update...
2days later this update was offline and apple deleted every trace that had to do with this update... since then I can't even burn 1 stupid audio cd or a standard dvd!

Now after installing Snow Leopard I can't even insert any cd or dvd because my MBP ejects it about 10 seconds after it was inserted... this is the case for EVERY kind of compact disc (originals & burned discs)


My Drive is a:
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857D:

Firmware-Version: KCVB
Verbindungstyp: ATAPI
Brennen möglich: Ja (Laufwerk von Apple geliefert)
Cache: 2048 KB
DVD lesen: Ja
Beschreibbare CD: -R, -RW
Beschreibbare DVD: -R, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Schreibstrategien: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Medien: Um die verfügbaren Brenngeschwindigkeiten anzuzeigen, legen Sie ein Medium ein und wählen dann „Darstellung“ > „Aktualisieren“.

HELP!

[avatar1632]

Originally Posted by PXT

... the OS should be in charge of its Apps at all times anyway. If I ask my OS to make an app disappear, it should disappear.

Six ways to Sunday, no; you don't know it, but you do not want the OS to be "in charge of" its 3rd-party apps. You end up with a POS like the Windows registry which, if there ever was one, is a bag of hurt.

Responsibility, if there is to be any at all, for proper uninstallation should lie with the individual application. Any given application should know better than anything else what file(s) it manages (user-created data notwithstanding) and ought to have an uninstaller of its own of some sort. The fact that most apps don't have an uninstaller at all is pure and simple poor decision-making on the part of the developer (yes, it may increase development costs initially, but it's largely reusable code so it's not like you're reinventing the wheel for each app you create).

Even if an app just has a menu item called "Uninstall" that results in a pop-up that says, "Just drag me, and <this plist file>, to the trash; thanks for playing." it'd be better than leaving the average (former Windows-) user guessing how it's done.

Saying "it's just a handful of plist files hanging around" is a cop-out. There's no reason at all that uninstalling an app, and all of its attendant files, should be any more difficult than installing it. Especially for programs that use a pkg or mpkg (drag-and-drop installs are a bit more troublesome to clean up after automatically, although AppZapper does a decent job) and therefore have a Receipt file they can use to remove every file they initially installed.

[BenRoethig]

Can't come some enough. The stacks enhancements haven't worked at all so far.

[steviet02]

Originally Posted by tschunde

apple also fucked up my mbp 2,33 c2d superdrive about 1 1/2 years ago with a firmware update...
2days later this update was offline and apple deleted every trace that had to do with this update... since then I can't even burn 1 stupid audio cd or a standard dvd!

Now after installing Snow Leopard I can't even insert any cd or dvd because my MBP ejects it about 10 seconds after it was inserted... this is the case for EVERY kind of compact disc (originals & burned discs)


My Drive is a:
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857D:

Firmware-Version: KCVB
Verbindungstyp: ATAPI
Brennen möglich: Ja (Laufwerk von Apple geliefert)
Cache: 2048 KB
DVD lesen: Ja
Beschreibbare CD: -R, -RW
Beschreibbare DVD: -R, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Schreibstrategien: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Medien: Um die verfügbaren Brenngeschwindigkeiten anzuzeigen, legen Sie ein Medium ein und wählen dann „Darstellung“ > „Aktualisieren“.

HELP!

That fix has been out for a long time, look here

[macosxp]

Maybe the fix that will make it so displays set to the darkest level don't revert to the brightest level on reboot will come in 10.6.2? This has been a problem in 10.5.8 also.

[Neil Anderson]

I like Snow Leopard's Exposé even better than the previous versions. Bigger windows. Titles. Shows the minimized windows nicely, too.

[coffeetime]

This has been one of the more painful upgrades for me. Where my USB-attached HP Color Laserjet 1500L worked under Leopard, I can't find a driver nor get it to work under any of the other drivers with Snow Leopard. HP doesn't show this printer as either "supported" or "unsupported" for Snow Leopard. Rosetta has crashed me back to a relaunch of the Finder on several occasions with Microsoft Office v.X, and I can recreate the crash consistently using HP's ImageZone software for my Officejet 7110. My Mac now always reboots with the sound level set to "off" - not a huge thing, but annoying. Unsanity's FruitMenu and Windowshade don't work, and I've read where others are having problems with Logitech's Control Center software (which seems to work fine for me).

[macosxp]

Originally Posted by coffeetime

This has been one of the more painful upgrades for me. Where my USB-attached HP Color Laserjet 1500L worked under Leopard, I can't find a driver nor get it to work under any of the other drivers with Snow Leopard. HP doesn't show this printer as either "supported" or "unsupported" for Snow Leopard. Rosetta has crashed me back to a relaunch of the Finder on several occasions with Microsoft Office v.X, and I can recreate the crash consistently using HP's ImageZone software for my Officejet 7110. My Mac now always reboots with the sound level set to "off" - not a huge thing, but annoying. Unsanity's FruitMenu and Windowshade don't work, and I've read where others are having problems with Logitech's Control Center software (which seems to work fine for me).

Side effects of an early upgrade.

[Haggar]

If Mac OS doesn't need uninstallers for applications, then neither does Windows. If you want to tell Mac users to "just drag the application to the trash", then Windows users can just go to Program Files and drag the folder of the application into the Recycle Bin. Windows users can just click on the Start menu > All Programs, right click on the application name and delete.

[Haggar]

Originally Posted by avatar1632

Most programs -- anything that's just a drag-and-drop into /Applications, actually -- don't put stuff all over the place, other than the stray plist (and AppZapper finds those easily).

Not true. There are applications that install by drag and drop but when run for the first time, they automatically install files into various system folders all over the hard drive. EyeTV is one such example. So is Microsoft Office 2004.

[Haggar]

Originally Posted by avatar1632

The fact that most apps don't have an uninstaller at all is pure and simple poor decision-making on the part of the developer (yes, it may increase development costs initially, but it's largely reusable code so it's not like you're reinventing the wheel for each app you create).

I presume this applies to Apple's own applications as well?

[Pascal007]

Originally Posted by coffeetime

This has been one of the more painful upgrades for me. Where my USB-attached HP Color Laserjet 1500L worked under Leopard, I can't find a driver nor get it to work under any of the other drivers with Snow Leopard. HP doesn't show this printer as either "supported" or "unsupported" for Snow Leopard. Rosetta has crashed me back to a relaunch of the Finder on several occasions with Microsoft Office v.X, and I can recreate the crash consistently using HP's ImageZone software for my Officejet 7110. My Mac now always reboots with the sound level set to "off" - not a huge thing, but annoying. Unsanity's FruitMenu and Windowshade don't work, and I've read where others are having problems with Logitech's Control Center software (which seems to work fine for me).

May I suggest you backup your Users folder to another drive or a disk image, erase your hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch ? I think your Mac suffers from the third-party-extensions instability syndrome. Which extensions, I don’t know (and you don’t know too, otherwise you would not have these problems !)

For sure, Rosetta and Office 2004 work well here. As well as my LaserJet printer (although it is not Color).

HP ImageZone is incompatible and not supported by HP under Mac OS 10.5 and up.
Supported HP printers built in 10.6
More info from HP

[eko425]

Originally Posted by georgetang

Another thing I've notice that Expose and Space doesn't work as smooth as it was on Leopard...

That's interesting. Personally, I welcome the new changes to Expose. On my machine, it runs much more smoothly and with less lag than on 10.5. I really like the blue glowing outlines, the scaled windows, and especially the new effects re hot corners. I couldn't stand the alert sound that would play when I (inadvertently) went to my Expose corners when there were fewer than two windows. To each is own, I guess.

[Rokken]

Originally Posted by macosxp

Maybe the fix that will make it so displays set to the darkest level don't revert to the brightest level on reboot will come in 10.6.2? This has been a problem in 10.5.8 also.

I had the same bug in 10.5.8 as well, but it's gone after upgrading to SL yesterday. While the upgrade in my unibody MacBook was all good, my late 2007 iMac was quite quirky afterwards. It wasn't that bad, but still. I did a clean install today and it's been sailing so far.

[Haggar]

If a Mac's logic board is replaced, will Time Machine be able to continue where previous backups left off, without requiring users to do command line tricks?

[Haggar]

Originally Posted by avatar1632

TimeMachine with FileVault: Disregarding the underlying "I want" syndrome here, if you want to understand why this simply isn't possible you should read up on it. Trying to do a backup of a FileVault directory while it's in use is like trying to change a flat tire on a moving vehicle when you can't see what you're doing. The only alternative is to copy the data unencrypted to the Time Machine disk and, presumably, you don't want that. Additionally, since FileVault doesn't use a sparsebundle, but a sparseimage, Time Machine would have to back up your entire home directory every time a single bit of data or metadata changed -- not good.

So assuming that is the only possible way to correctly back up a Filevault home directory, how does Time Machine work if the user wants to restore a single file from a Filevault home directory? If the only way to back a FileVault home directory is to copy the entire sparseimage when it is not in use, then wouldn't the only way to restore an item from a Filevault home directory be to replace the entire sparseimage when it is not in use? Does that mean the user has to log out, log in using a second account, then restore the entire Filevault sparseimage using Time Machine?

[oneaburns]

This has also been one of the more difficult upgrades for me, which is disappointing for Apple and a 8 month old MacBook. When I first did the install it seemed to be great and Safari worked super fast. I turned it off that night b/c I was going to have it in my briefcase for awhile the next day. When I powered it back on is when the trouble started. I couldn't connect to any networks. IT came and tried to help but couldn't. All of my apps were super slow and usually would fail to open the first time. Scrolling through a window in Safari was juttery and took forever. When I got home it continued so I used the utilities in Snow Leopard to do a restore from my Time Capsule to before I installed SL. Now everything works great.

I guess I'll just wait another month or so and see if everything works itself out and then try again. I expect this type of stuff from Windows, not Apple.

[coffeetime]

"For sure, Rosetta and Office 2004 work well here. As well as my LaserJet printer (although it is not Color)."

Check out Apple's discussion forums. Lots of folks are having problems with Snow Leopard crashing into a blue screen and then back to a logon, dumping anything that was running. Apple's Console app will show you crash logs, but interestingly, they don't show the same ones that TattleTale System shows, and that are the crash logs involved with the WindowServer process. That may have something to do with the fact that Apple's automated Crash Reporter never pops up when this crash happens.

You also speculated that my problems may be because of extensions. That is not the case. I run a pretty stock system, and Unsanity's FruitMenu and WindowShade haxies were disabled because the underlying APE engine disabled itself already. My problems occurred when I tried to launch the installer to de-install all remnants of code and prefs, at which time the installer crashed.

As far as HP's ImageZone software, while it may not be supported, it does still work for the most part, allowing me to at least use my scanner. Thanks to HP's policy to shut off software upgrade support for their peripherals a few years after launch, HP printers have become little more than Bic lighters - you use them for awhile, and then you toss them. I will never buy another HP product again.

[webraider]

Originally Posted by Haggar

If Mac OS doesn't need uninstallers for applications, then neither does Windows. If you want to tell Mac users to "just drag the application to the trash", then Windows users can just go to Program Files and drag the folder of the application into the Recycle Bin. Windows users can just click on the Start menu > All Programs, right click on the application name and delete.

Draggin a program to the trash works about 95 percent of the time. There are only a few programs that leave things in other places, however usually these files won't effect your system and don't take up that much room. Preference files are just text files. On windows, if you try to do this, the registry will have a fit with you. Dragging an app to the trash is much more doable on mac than windows.

[Dirac]

Originally Posted by avatar1632

Additionally, since FileVault doesn't use a sparsebundle, but a sparseimage, Time Machine would have to back up your entire home directory every time a single bit of data or metadata changed -- not good.

Off the top of my head, I recall that Time Machine requires your FileVault to be a sparsebundle. Mine is, and I had to convert it from a sparseimage when I went from Tiger to Leopard—specifically to use Time Machine.

Also, to get back a single file or folder (or a bunch) you don't have to restore the whole FileVault. you can mount the sparsebundle right from the backup volume and drag-copy whatever you want.

I don't agree that it would be impossible or impractical to have realtime Time Machine backup of FileVaults. I don't speak from direct knowledge but would imagine that recording fsevents as Time Machine does (to keep track of things as they change) would work for the blocks of a sparse bundle as it does for any other file. There must be a reason Apple does not do it (yet), and I suspect they will have it someday after they've really nailed the process. Well, one can hope.

Regards.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by Sgt Zeppelin

I wonder if the graphic driver work includes support for cards other than the 9400M to use hardware-accelerated H.264 playback...because that would be fantastic.

+1

I have an iMac9,1 with the ATI Radeon HD 4850, and ATI says they are working on OpenCL with Apple...
"AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 4800 series found in high performance Macs complements Snow Leopard’s OpenCL"
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/we...omments/22267/

ATI Radeon™ HD 4850 - GPU Specifications at least indicates the capability of H.264 hardware acceleration...
http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonhd4800/specs.html

I would also like to see more brightness range with the 4850 on the iMac.
I can adjust the brightness on my MBP3,1 (8600M GT) all the way from pitch-black to very bright (pitch-black useful when connecting to a high def TV). The range on the iMac is limited to say the least. This range limitation existed before Snow Leopard though.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by macosxp

Maybe the fix that will make it so displays set to the darkest level don't revert to the brightest level on reboot will come in 10.6.2? This has been a problem in 10.5.8 also.

Since upgrading to SL my late 2007 MBP3,1 now remembers the brightness level I previously had when I reboot. My newer iMac9,1 with Radeon HD 4850 didn't remember before the upgrade, and still doesn't after. And the brightness range is still just as limited.

[pylon]

Another little quirk I've noticed with SL on my iMac9,1 with Radeon HD 4850 is that I can't see the bottom row of controls and info when in iTunes (create a playlist, turn shuffle on or off, # of songs, etc.). It shows up just fine in SL on my late 2007 MBP3,1 with GeForce 8600M GT.

[webpoet73]

I finally upgraded to the newest version of Adobe Flash (10.0.32.18) and now (no matter what browser, Firefox or Safari), websites that are heavily flash (rottentomatos.com, ign.com, espn.com) crash the browser. Maybe there is a reason that Apple shipped an older version of Flash with SL. The newer version might be causing issues and browser crashes.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by webpoet73

I finally upgraded to the newest version of Adobe Flash (10.0.32.18) and now (no matter what browser, Firefox or Safari), websites that are heavily flash (rottentomatos.com, ign.com, espn.com) crash the browser. Maybe there is a reason that Apple shipped an older version of Flash with SL. The newer version might be causing issues and browser crashes.

webpoet, try this-

Open your Applications folder, and then Utilities. Start up your Disk Utility. Select the appropriate hard drive, and then push the Repair Disk Permissions button. When I did this many repairs were listed during the process, all associated with the new Flash install I did. I've never had a single Safari crash afterwards.