Hello;

i'll take a shot at answering this. Here are my thoughts.

- Update Windows
Well let's hope your not updating Windows on a Mac. But system updates on a Mac arrive and are downloaded automatically, unless you turn this feature off. I have seldom seen any updates that take longer than 10 minutes to install and that includes any number of application updates that you might get at the same time.

- Clean up the disk
Of course it is possible to make just as big a mess of a Mac's hard drive as it is in Windows. I'm not sure what you mean by cleaning up the disk.

- Scan the disk for errors
Drive scanning, known as fsck, I'm not kidding that is the real name of the UNIX program that does that task, is done each time you turn on the Mac or install software or updates. takes no more than a minute or two.

- Defragment the disk
As a rule we don't defragment UNIX/Mac disks that's what fsck is for.

- Update my antispyware and perform scan
- Update my antivirus and perform a virus check

There has never been a reported virus/spyware for Macintosh computers in the wild. I don't run anti-virus software on any of my Macs including a server connected to the internet. There is anti-virus software for the Mac but I'm not sure what it does what with no viruses to find.I would assume it would take about the same amount of time to scan a Mac as it would a PC. (What a racket Mac antivirus software for Macs is. Think about it all you have to do is make some minor file changes every month and people pay you for softeware that does...nothing!)

I would say that on a mac the tasks you outline should take no more than 1-20 minutes depending on the number and size of the updates. ubt even for most of that time you could still use the computer for other tasks.

Greg Kearney


On Jan 16, 2007, at 07:04 , Christopher Hallsworth wrote:

Hi all,
I've just finished the maintenance on my Windows machine. It took nearly
5 hours to do the following:
- Update Windows
- Clean up the disk
- Scan the disk for errors
- Defragment the disk
- Update my antispyware and perform scan
- Update my antivirus and perform a virus check
I have a couple of mac questions relating to the above.
1. Will I have to do any of the tasks listed above?
2. If so, how long would it take?
Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Christopher Hallsworth
Skype name chrishallsworth7266




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