MacOS X DVDs – Versions and Saving a Little Money on Them

A brief discussion on a private mailing list I’m on reminded me that there might be some interest in this.

MacOS X Leopard has been out for a while, but there are still a lot of folks who haven’t upgraded to it.

The upgrade comes in two versions, the single user licensed one and the “family pack”.

The single user licensed version is as it says, licensed for use on a single Apple computer and lists for $129.99. The family pack is licensed for use for up to five machines in one household, and lists for $199, a pretty good deal for staying legal at less than the cost of two single user licenses. While you can buy the single user and family packs directly from Apple with no shipping fees, Amazon usually has a better deal. At the time I wrote this, they were charging $26 less than list for the single user edition and $44.51 less than list for the family pack, both with free shipping.

If you’re coming to it from the Windows world, you’ll find that Mac OS X Leopard is a pleasure to install. It requires no serial numbers or product activation. You won’t have to worry about matching the particular distribution to the particular CD key.

You should be forewarned that, in my experience, the restore DVD that comes with a computer will only work with that computer or class of computers. So if you have a MacBook restore DVD it likely will refuse to install on an iMac.

Amazon also has a pretty good deal on Leopard Server: $104.51 off the 10 user version (normal list price $499) and $168.46 off the unlimited user version (normal list price $999). Leopard Server does have a serial number and will detect multiple copies of itself running on the same network.

I don’t expect the next version of MacOS X (“Snow Leopard”) to be out for another 9 to 15 months. Snow Leopard is targeted at providing performance and stability rather than feature enhancements, and will only run on Intel machines. It should be a worthwhile upgrade (who doesn’t want performance and stability?) but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it.