[Macpartners] Mac OS X 10.3.9 update finale

[Albert Willis]

Here's the recap what's happened with Mac OS X 10.3.9.

Apple released the Mac OS X 10.3.9 update late on Friday, April 15. The 
update was designed to fix several bugs [1] and address several serious 
security vulnerabilities [2]. It also comes with version 1.3 of Safari 
[3], Apple's web browser for Mac OS X. Safari 1.3 displays pages 35% 
faster than previous versions; it also improves HTML and CSS 
compatibility, improves Javascript performance and adds support for 
XSLT, among other things. Web geeks and developers should be jumping up 
and down with excitement; users will notice pages being displayed in 
less time than before.

[1] <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300966>
[2] <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301327>
[3] <http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2005_04.html#007962>

The problem is that on _some_ Macs, Java applications would no longer 
run after upgrading to 10.3.9; also, accessing web pages that contain 
Java applets would cause Safari to crash.

It was quickly discovered that Security Update 2005-002 could be 
downloaded and reinstalled and that would resolve the problem. By 
Monday, Apple suggested that users do the same.

Apple has now released an update that restores Java to working 
condition on machines that are affected. Java Update for Mac OS X 
10.3.9 is available via Software Update or as a standalone installer 
from Apple [4].

[4] <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300966>

To summarize: Mac OS X 10.3.9 contains important bug fixes and 
addresses several serious security vulnerabilities; all Mac OS 10.3 
users should install it. Users should then install Java Update for Mac 
OS X 10.3.9.

Only users that run _several Java applications simultaneously_ may have 
some additional work to do; and that's only _if_ memory usage has 
become an issue after installing Java Update for Mac OS X 10.3.9. The 
number of users affected in this way should be tiny; if this includes 
you or your users, Apple has a Knowledge Base article that describes 
what to do [5].

[5] <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301382>

Before installing any of the updates, you should:

  - do the installations on a test (non-production) machine; ensure that
    applications function as expected
  - have a current backup before you install on a production machine
  - use Disk Utility to repair permissions after installing the updates


   -- Al

______________________________
Albert Willis
Macintosh Platform Coordinator - Software Release Team
Information Services and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
awillis at mit.edu