![]() They appear as updates in the Software Update pane. These smaller updates contain security patches and other fixes. For example, if it says you have macOS Mojave version “10.14.1” installed, this means you have Mojave with the “.1” update installed. In the screenshot below, we have version 10.14 of macOS Mojave installed. If you see “macOS Monterey” and version “12.0”, you have Monterey, As long as it starts with “12.”, you have Monterey installed. The name and version number of your Mac’s operating system appears on the “Overview” tab in the About This Mac window. To see which version of macOS you have installed, click the Apple menu icon at the top left corner of your screen, and then select the “About This Mac” command. How to Check if You Have the Latest Version Here’s Apple’s overview of the new features in Monterey. The System directory is GBs in size and this would take a lot longer to do and require a much larger amount of free space on the boot volume.Monterey includes SharePlay for watching videos in sync with other people, a controversial new Safari browser redesign, Focus Modes that sync with the Focus status on your iPhone, and more. In some cases a reboot is required, in others it isn't.įinally, in terms of your last question about why not just create a new system and then having this become active after the next reboot, while this would technically be possible it really isn't practical. Regardless though, firmware updates require a reboot, there's just no way around it.Īnother example is the update of resources required to use hardware. Adding to this, some years back Apple started automatically including firmware updates (if/when required) within macOS updates/upgrades, so it's not easy to check which devices had firmware updates included in an update/upgrade. There are many operating system resources that are used by applications, including 3rd party applications, and updating these while the user is logged in just isn't going to be an easy task and, in fact, potentially capable of causing file corruption etc.Īlso, in cases of firmware updates a reboot is most definitely required. However, in most cases that a reboot is required, it's because it's actually necessary. For example, some system updates make changes to things like a network service and, while you could get away with just restarting that rather than the whole computer, it's just easier for most users to do a restart than go through the steps to restart the network service. Rebooting a computer for some operating system updates/upgrades is required for all operating systems, not just macOS.Īctually, in the case of an update, sometimes a reboot isn't required when it is still used as part of an update process, but this is only in instances where it's easier for most of the user population to have to undergo a reboot. Allowing the OS to change the system "on-the-fly" would negate the security it's trying to achieve. * SIP is designed to protect the system by preventing changes to the OS. ![]() Again, none can be done with you logged in and none of it done by simply "dumping" files in a directory.Īn upgrade is a process and all of this takes time. you don't want a Mac mini firmware on your Mac Pro), checksums validated, images backed up, applied, verified, old ones removed and the system reinitialized. In the case of firmware updates, images have to be verified (i.e. So this means a copy of the working system is created, the update applied, the update checked, and (if all good) the restore point deleted. Many things have to happen, least of which is restore points created (in case the backup fails). * Secondly, the way you're looking at this is analogous to doing a home renovation by dumping a new house next to the old one and telling the people to just move in. If the system is in /System, why isn't an OS upgrade simply creating aįirst off, /System is protected by SIP so to disable it, you actually need to boot from a different mount point. ![]() It could be anything from patching a config file to flashing firmware of some type. You can't use the computer during any of this. Typically, you'll see updates downloaded, the system will begin a shutdown, updates applied, a reboot, and a "finalization" of the updates followed by a normal boot. When an OS is upgraded, the same thing must happen and this is typically done (when it comes to kernel level upgrades especially) in single user mode. ![]() The files must be closed, read, analyzed, the appropriate patches/updates copied over and the app restarted. Generally, for the same reason you can't use an app (Word, Excel, Numbers, iTerm, Adobe Photoshop, etc.) that is in the process of being upgraded. The update in question may only need a service restarted or it may need updates to the actual kernel. An update that you do to your system may be vastly different than I do on mine. It depends greatly on what needs to be done.
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