Rolling Back OS X: The Saga Continues

Last week I wrote about the need for OS X to include a rollback feature so any system or application updates that caused problems could be undone. I was in a bind with two separate problems, the latter being my printer driver not being recognized as Intel compatible. My printer is an HP Officejet Pro K550 and I am very pleased with its output and performance—it’s just getting it to work that has been the chore.

A very long phone call to HP (who had no solution), identified it is a known problem when you install the my printer’s driver in Windows as well as in OS X, which I had done in Parallels. Coincidentally, thereafter was when I first noticed the problem—so maybe HP was right.

Uninstalling it from Windows and repeatedly from OS X did nothing to help.

This left me with only one solution: reinstall OS X.

Because I have SuperDuper! cloning my system every day, I was able to do a test run of this process to determine if it would indeed fix my problem. After all, no point doing it if I still had the same problem.

The OS X installer instructed me I would have to do a full erase as the backup system’s partition was not bootable (which is bizarre as I booted off it regularly). Therefore I couldn’t do the Archive and Install, which would have been the normal process.

Knowing I could migrate all my user data and applications from my main OS X installed, I proceeded to erase my backup installation and reinstall OS X. The version on my disks is 10.4.7.

Before the migration process, I reconnected the printer but used the OS X’s default driver for my printer. This worked perfectly! Interesting too, that it is version 3.3 whereas the “latest” available on HP’s site is 3.1.1. I need to point out here that that driver had not been available to me in my previous installation of OS X, despite my adding all of OS X’s HP drivers. It seems if you don’t install them at the original install time, you don’t get everything. HP IP Printing was also missing. It’s also interesting that that v3.3 driver does not appear in the available list of HP drivers in OS X’s printer selection. OS X just seems to magically find it somewhere by itself.

I then proceeded with the migration. (Apple, can you please include in the Migration Assistant an option to choose which applications are restored?)

At this point I should mention a “don’t” that came back to bite me later. If you are migrating users to a new system, user name conflicts will force a rename of the migrated name. This can cause problems with file access later on. Therefore, if you choose the Erase and Migrate method, when you are prompted to create the initial user name, do not make the shortname the same as the one you intend to migrate back in.

After some testing, which included discovering I had file access problems to many files I’d created with my old user name on disks, and finding various other issues, I decided it was safe to reinstall OS X on my primary system disk.

This time I was able to do the Archive and Install.

Archive and Install backs up your system and retains all your user folders and files. It then restores all the applications and any global settings from the backup.

By the end, your system should be running reasonably similar to how it was before you began. You’d expect this to be, in the end, no different than the Erase and Migrate method. However, some things were different so I spent a fair amount of time trying to work out which was the better process.

In the end I decided the Erase and Migrate gave a more accurate recovery of my system. But, because of my screwup with the user names and subsequent file access problems (and OS X not providing a GUI level way of renaming user shortnames), I decided to stick with the Archive and Install I’d done on my primary drive.

This method did leave a few issues behind, and probably some I haven’t discovered yet. Here are a few, with abbreviations in brackets indicating which reinstall methods were affected:
- Photoshop had to be reinstalled as it was missing some files from the application support folder. (A&I only)
- Parallels no longer works under either method and has to be reinstalled. (A&I and E&M)
- Adobe Acrobat’s printer driver needs to be reinstalled; however, Acrobat detected and repaired that when I next ran it. (A&I and E&M)
- rEFIt (an excellent multi-OS boot menu) needed to be reinstalled. (A&I only)
- Microsoft Intellitype (for my MS Natural keyboard) needed to be reinstalled. (A&I and E&M)
- Logitech Control Center (for my trackball) needed to be reinstalled. (A&I and E&M)
- Several other preference panes needed to be reinstalled. (A&I only)
- Need to recreate my user profile’s icon. (A&I only)
- Adobe Creative Suite lost its activation. (E&M only as I did deactivate before doing the A&I)

I haven’t tested every application yet, but all my important ones are working. From this experience, I’ve learned a few do’s and don’ts of rolling back your OS.

Do’s
- Unless you’re desperately short of disk space, do install all the printer drivers that come on your OS X disk if you reinstall OS X. Previously I’d only installed those I needed—which was none! Some things like vendor IP printing and some drivers—including the HP Inkjet version 3.3 my Officejet Pro K550 needed—did not install when I tried adding them at a later date.
- Do deactivate Adobe Creative Suite’s license before you begin!
- Do backup your system regularly, preferably daily.
- If you’ve got the space, do keep a partition available for testing restores, reinstalls, and recoveries.
- If you are going to do an Erase and Migrate, do make sure your source for the migration will be available. I got burnt with this last year when I tried using a disk image, and I had to manually move everything back. It seems MA needs an actual disk as its source.

Don’ts
- If doing an Erase and Migrate, don’t create that first user shortname the same as any you will be migrating.
- Don’t ever be optimistic when doing any sort of service on a computer—even a Mac. You’re just setting yourself up for a fall.

OS X is a pretty decent OS, and in the scheme of things, both approaches didn’t really cause many problems. And Migration Assistant has certainly proved itself to be an excellent and reliable utility.

Hope this all helps someone avoid a little pain one day.