[Macpartners] Apple Releases OS X 10.8 - Current Status and Recommendation to Wait

[David J Conlon]

Good afternoon,

Earlier today, Apple released its newest operating system for the Mac, OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion).

Based on preliminary testing of prerelease versions of the OS, Information Services and Technology (IS&T) recommends that Mac users wait to upgrade and continue to use Mac OS X 10.6 or 10.7 while IS&T completes its review and testing of OS X 10.8.

Why wait?
As with any new operating system release, there are some incompatibilities, bugs, and an associated learning curve. Also, some applications that are important or critical to productive, safe computing at MIT do not yet support 10.8. For more information, and a list of known issues and workarounds, please visit the OS X 10.8 Project Wiki at https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/x/3kboB (certificates required).

Based on past releases, IS&T expects that Apple and third-party software vendors will release several updates addressing these incompatibilities and, in the coming months, will officially certify that their software supports 10.8.

Limited support
The IS&T Computing Help Desk is offering limited support for 10.8. This includes getting connected to the MIT network and addressing basic configuration issues for early adopters and for new machines arriving with 10.8 pre-installed. As critical application issues are resolved, more in-depth support will become available.

Limited MIT documentation for 10.8 can be found in the Knowledge Base at http://kb.mit.edu/confluence/x/XAAPC. This page will be updated frequently as testing is completed for applications and features commonly used at MIT.

For additional questions or assistance with 10.8, please contact the Help Desk at 617.253.1101 or helpdesk at mit.edu<mailto:helpdesk at mit.edu>. You can also submit a request online at http://ist.mit.edu/help.

Licensing
IS&T will have a limited number of OS X 10.8 licenses available for MIT faculty and staff. We are working with Apple to acquire these licenses and will share more details as they become available.

Additionally, please note that before upgrading on their own, departmental users should first check with their local IT support regarding the roll-out plan of any new operating system.

For questions regarding the OS X 10.8 release process, please contact the Software Release Team at swrt at mit.edu<mailto:swrt at mit.edu>.

Thank you on behalf of the OS X 10.8 Release Team.

Regards,
Dave Conlon

--------
David J. Conlon
Manager, Software Release Team (SWRT)
Systems Engineering, Information Services & Technology (IS&T)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building W92-229B
Cambridge, MA 02139
p. 617.253.5988

Important: IS&T staff will *NEVER* ask you for your password, nor will MIT
send you email requesting your password information. Please ignore any
email messages that claim to require you to provide such information.
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