reinstallation

When you purchase a new Mac, the system is set up to introduce you to OS X and accept new account information to start you off; however, if you purchase a used Mac then this may not be the case.

While owners selling a used Mac ought to format the system and include any restoration discs that came with it, sometimes this is not the case; they simply handed it over, with all their applications and settings still intact. Perhaps to make things easier they might create a new account for you, or change their passwords to their old account … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week readers wrote in with questions regarding the necessity of TRIM on SSD devices when upgrading hard drives on Mac systems, reinstalling OS X 10.7 freshly on a hard drive instead of needing to upgrade or clone, and how to manage file-system corruption on a hard disk before upgrading to a new version of OS X. We welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, post them in the comments!

Question: The necessity of TRIM … Read more

Replacing a hard drive on a Mac may sometimes be necessary to either upgrade to increase its capacity, replace a faulty drive, or upgrade your Mac with a faster solid-state drive (SSD), which will often breath new life into an older system. While swapping out an older hard drive for a newer one is generally fairly simple to do, in Lion the upgrade may take a few more steps.

There are several ways of migrating data to a new drive for your Mac, but generally it involves either cloning the system or restoring from a backup (either by migrating or … Read more

Updated, October 22, 2012: Updated to reflect the changes in the final version of Windows 8.

Since the days of Windows 95, users have had to deal with the inevitability of having to reinstall Windows to regain system stability and performance. This often entailed spending hours in front of the PC -- reinstalling Windows, applying patches, reinstalling programs, and setting personal preferences.

In Windows 8, Microsoft added two new features called Refresh and Reset, which simplify the entire reinstall process and reduces the amount of time required sitting in front of the PC.

The Refresh option reinstalls Windows, but … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers. This week we had questions on how the iTunes Home Sharing feature works, different approaches for upgrading to OS X Lion, how to list open network ports in OS X, and how to identify whether you installed the Adobe Flash Trojan. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few answers here, we welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Options for reinstalling OS X MacFixIt reader "Eric" asks:

Occasionally, users may find that after installing the latest version of iTunes on their Mac an error message appears reporting that the copy of iTunes is unusable and must be reinstalled. Resolving the issue requires removing all iTunes components from your machine and reinstalling a fresh download. Read on to see how.… Read more

Windows 7 has done wonders for Microsoft's reputation, which was seriously tarnished by the ice cold reception that greeted Vista, Windows 7's predecessor. That's the conclusion of the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index, which is compiled annually by the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business, the American Society for Quality, and the CFI Group.

According the ACSI results released Tuesday, Microsoft's customer satisfaction score jumped 8.9 percent in the past year to 76 (on the survey's 100-point scale). That's higher than Microsoft has scored on the survey in the last … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature where we answer questions e-mailed to us by readers. This week, we have questions on an iMac that randomly switches off, where the theme files for Keynote are located on the hard drive, and reinstalling OS X over a damaged installation.… Read more

In OS X there are times when you may have deleted items from your Applications folder that were put there by the OS X installer. Sometimes people have done this intentionally for items they do not use to clear up clutter and free hard drive space, but at other times people have inadvertently deleted them, including important items like the System Preferences.… Read more