Apple today released a major update to its Mac OS X 10.6 operating system, “Snow Leopard,” marking the second official release for the software since OS X 10.6 debuted in August.
The first set of patches for Snow Leopard came in September as version 10.6.1, just weeks after the OS’s release. Apple issued only nine fixes with that 75MB patch.
Now, the new 10.6.2 update weighs in at almost 500MB in size and addresses 58 bugs in total across Mac OS versions from 10.5 to 10.6.2.
It fixes the most prominent of vulnerabilities in the OS, in which users who logged in as a guest would have all of their data erased. That problem had been known since as far back as September.
At the time, Apple had told InternetNews.com that the company was working on a solution, and that the problem existed only in very rare cases.
Wide array of fixes
In its release notes, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) divides the fixes included in 10.6.2 into categories.
Under general operating system fixes, one fix addresses an issue that might cause users’ systems to unexpectedly log them out. Others offer fixes to Spotlight search results, the reliability of menu extras, the creation of mobile accounts for Active Directory users and general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk.
It also addresses video playback and performance issues for the new widescreen 21.5-inch and 27-inc iMacs, which may occur in some situations while AirPort is turned on. There had been rumors in the Mac blogosphere that the new Macs, particularly the 27-inch unit, suffered performance problems.
OS X 10.6.2 also includes a number of font fixes, patches for a number of problems with Mail, improved MobileMe performance, and minor fixes for network file systems, printing and faxing, and Safari.
There are also security fixes and patches in 10.6.2, most notably in the Apache Web server software, the CoreMedia framework and QuickTime.
The 10.6.2 update is available via Software Update and Apple’s support downloads site. The size of the download in Software Update may vary depending on your computer.
