Perhaps a little too easy?

I'm always suspicious when I find myself staring at a machine after an install and my blood pressure isn't elevated. Isn't it suppose to be hard to make all this junk work? Have I just gotten so darn good at it that it's not even a challenge anymore? Should I have eaten that week-old sushi that was in the fridge? No, no, and I hope so? These system should not be difficult to install. I've never been good enough at anything that it wasn't a challenge. And the jury is still out on the sushi. I better make this quick before the jury returns though...

In all my years of working with these systems, I've had some pretty epic battles with various hardware and software combinations.

The battle of the dual monitors back in '99 comes to mind when one OS worked swimmingly with a version of Pro Tools and the overpriced dual monitor card, but one tiny deviation in any of the components would send the whole thing into a tailspin. I actually bled in that battle. (I jammed my wrist into the corner of the computer's power supply while removing a card...ouch!) So with all that battle hardening, I went into the newest Apple OS offering with my defenses high. Leopard (OS 10.5) has been a sticking point for several months with Digi users. It's taken a long time for the guys at Digi to get this one under control for the Pro Tools LE systems and that has not been a pretty topic.

But alas, Digi finally unleashed the fury and released a Leopard compatible version, so all systems were go! It's a good thing too because we just put a new batch of machines in Dallas and they only come with 10.5. The first thing I did was to upgrade the computers to OS 10.5.3 per Digi's recommendations. From there I installed the PTLE 7.4.2 software. Oddly, it all just booted right up and worked with the Mbox2 Pro's. The only hitch was that I had to upgrade the version of Xpand! that I had, otherwise it was all yellow on the screen.

Beyond that, it was uncomfortably easy. I begin to consider that they were brand new machines that had never been touched, so why would there be any problems? The real test would come when I tried to upgrade an existing system from OS 10.4 (Tiger) to the new system. So I geared up and took a run at that with an LE system. Leopard installed on that machine as an upgrade and it was so seamless that I had to check to be sure nothing had been lost. But that was an LE system, right?

Next I did an HD system. Aside from needing to download some updates for a few plug-ins to make them work better with PTHD 7.4.2, it was as easy as falling off a bicycle. Simple as riding a log? Watching a pot of boiling water? I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to take their system through an OS upgrade without the proper precautions. Be sure you have your important data backed-up. Also be sure you have time allotted to deal with whatever problems may arise. Just because I didn't have any problems doesn't mean you won't.

In the middle of a project is not a good time to do an upgrade, that's for sure. Well, I hope this indicates how simple it will be moving forward with these systems. As I'm typing this, my software update application is bouncing in the dock telling me that OS 10.5.4 is now available!

And that sushi is feeling a bit unhappy, too.