Mac OS X Operating System Updates
Keeping the Macintosh operating system patched and updated will help prevent the Mac from being the agent by which a worm or virus is injected into our network. It is an extremely important process which also has the benefit of obtaining bug fixes that have been provided by Apple.
- The first step is to launch the Software Update application. If you are a user in the "admin" group on a Mac, you may find that this gets launched for you when you first start up and log into the Mac. Otherwise, you'll need to go into System Preferences and launch the "Software Update" application.
- Then click on the button "Check now". After a while, you should see a list of software updates offered by Apple.
- There will be some software updates on the list that aren't relevant to you. For example, if you do not own an "ipod", the iPod software updates are not important. The ones you typically want to check are Security Updates.Select all of the security updates and click the Install button.
- These updates required administrative privileges, and you may be prompted to authenticate. If so, just enter your password that you use to log onto the Mac. If you are in the "admin" group, the software update can then procede.
- Reboot your Mac in order to make sure the new OS updates are in place.
Many of the security updates will actually increase the revision level of your operating system. For example, I was running Mac OS X 10.2.5, but because of recent updates, the version level was changed to mac OS X 10.2.6. To see the current revision level, select "About this Mac" under the Apple menu.
