Home Forums Mac Software Mac Operating Systems default behavior of Software Update

In Snow Leopard, Software Update offers to install all available updates without showing what the are. In order to edit the list and be selective, you have to click Show Details. Is there any way to show details by default? It's not a big deal but I find this behavior annoying.

That's the way it works for me in Leopard, and I find it mildly annoying as well. It's possible that this behavior was changed by one of the 10.5.x updates, because my sense is that it hasn't been that way the whole 2+ years I've been running Leopard.

(I'm assuming you're referring to behavior exhibited by Software Update when it launches automatically; in 10.5, anyway, if I launch SU manually, it goes directly to the list of available updates.)

Actually, no. This happens in 10.6 when I run SU manually (it never happened in 10.5 and previous). I was aware of that change before I upgraded to 10.6 via David Pogue's excellent Missing Manual book so I knew to expect it.

If you're launching Software Update manually, I imagine you could instead run an AppleScript script which would launch SU, then click the Show Details button, but since I don't have access to 10.6, I can't experiment with such a script, and, due to the extremely quirky nature of GUI scripting, such a script can really only be written through copious experimentation.

Might be worth reporting it to Apple as a bug; presumably one who is interested enough in the updating process to check manually doesn't fit the profile of the naïf for whom the "take care of all of this stuff out of my sight" approach seems designed.

I have no experience writing AppleScripts so I'm not going to try it. Besides, this is a very minor issue because all I have to do is click the Show Details button in the SU window. My impression is that this behavior is not a bug but has been deliberately designed into 10.6. Still, your suggestion about notifying Apple is a good one and I will do so.

I assume that Hal Itosis is on his annual hiatus. Hopefully, he'll see this thread when he returns. If anyone can tweak 10.6 to modify this, he can.

When you open Software Update from the Apple Menu (top left) there is a button 'Show Details' on the lower left of the window, click that and it will open, showing all the updates. untick those you don't want and then click 'Install'.

What I miss is the ability to Download and Keep, and Download, Install and Keep, that existed in Tiger - for those of us with more than one Mac this is tedious, we have to go to Apple Downloads and find each and every recommended update

I rarely use Software Update, preferring to get my d/l's directly from Apple...not really all that tedious if you keep up to date, because the newest ones are always at the top of the list, and perhaps all users with multiple Macs should consider doing the same, because some SU d/l's are tailored to the Mac doing the d/l'ing and may not be appropriate for all Macs.

(I said "rarely" with the [some months ago] AirPort update that could only be d/l'ed from SU in mind; I was reeeally put out by Apple's not bothering to post a warning and my resultant fruitless searching of their website.)

That was my original point. I want to know if it is possible to change the default behavior to show details without having to click the button (as it was previous to 10.6).

Seems that way to me as well.


Yes i was. And --as usual --i always feel a bit rusty when i get back (Unix??? what's that?). I'll look into it later perhaps, when i regain my tech chops.




<aol> Me too </aol>. I only use SU to find out what's needed... then i head for http://support.apple.com/downloads/ to get the item(s). It's nice to have the dmg handy for updating other Macs (or bootable partitions), and maybe check the SHA1 digest on security/system updates.

--

Good to see the FTM gang is still here!!!

Welcome back, Hal! In case you're feeling too rusty, remember that UNIX was invented by unemployed harem guards.

Cute.   For the benefit of readers who didn't catch your pun: eunuchs
Now let's stay on topic, before cyn castrates one of us!