Snow leopard - up the hill backwards!

Like some others I have a few issues with Snow Leopard and in some ways I regret the upgrade which I did for Exchange. In reality, (and lets just park this part of the debate for expedience purposes), Mail is not the best nor the most intuitive mail app for using in an enterprise environment...but thats another story.
My main issues with Snow Leopard are the continual crashes around adding attachments, Safari has become unstable, crashing at least once a day and I get an awful lot of beachball activity.
Is it right when I first open the applications folder in Finder that the icons take a few seconds to load as if I have caught them napping?
So I am thinking of doing a complete reinstall and would appreciate some feedback on what is a precarious and nervous step.
I have Time Machine that has been running for some time, I back up to Super Duper only twice a week as the majority of my work is either on iDisk or my company servers.
I would just like some feedback on how I should go about a reinstall.
All my e-mail is exchange based or via me.com and the only other two things precious to me are my family photos and my 25gb music collection.
My main area of concern is when I reinstall from my installation disks I will, I presume, be loading Tiger as that is where my iMac began. Do I then have to install Leopard before Snow Leopard, (although I may not load SL as I was more content with Leopard).
May thanks for reading this.
Jon

Before considering reinstallation, try to see if running the applications in question in Rosetta works better.
Go to the File menu -> Get Info and check Use Rosetta after clicking once on any offending application.
Check for disk space issues, and any applications not known to be Snow Leopard compatible*:
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/
http://www.macintouch.com/specialreports/snowleopard/slcompat.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3669
If after eliminating the probable, and directory and permissions issues*:
http://www.macmaps.com/directoryfaq.html
And possible third party non-necessary optimization utilities:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1772235
You still run into issues, you only need to erase and install Snow Leopard.
Be careful any applications or drivers you install are not from a previous PowerPC migration assistant install, and installed separately, as this article explains:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=10
But try to isolate your issues down to the base installation, and if they don't occur there, try each application one by one with a reboot in between.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

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    Sorry, but that is correct. You need Snow Leopard to sync your phone and the latest version of iTunes and you old G5 cannot run that.

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    Good Morning,
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    Have you restarted holding down the Opt key?  That procedure should give you a gray screen with all of the partitions that exist.  Then select the SL partition for boot.  Also go to System Preferences and Startup Disk, unlock the lock and select the SL partition as the default boot partition, then relock.

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    Likely a corrupted cache file
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    I used Roxio VHS to DVD for Mac (have iMac with Snow Leopard) and the audio does not synch with the video when playing in iMovie.  Any suggestions to fix?

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  • Can I run Snow Leopard on the new iMac

    Apple is warrantying me a new iMac because I have had many problems with my current machine. It's a late 2008 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 Ghz machine that I have been running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on. I have a lot of software that runs on Snow Leopard.
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    Here is a post that I assembled for a similar question:
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    2.  If your Mac will support it, partition your hard drive or add an external hard drive and install Snow Leopard into it and use the "dual-boot" method to choose between your PowerPC software or Lion/Mt. Lion - not available on the newest iMac;
    3.  Upgrade your software to Intel compatible versions, or find alternative software that will open your data files;
    3.  Install Snow Leopard (with Rosetta) into Parallels:
                                  [click on image to enlarge]
    Full Snow Leopard installation instructions here:
    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439
    NOTE: STEP ONE of the instructions must currently be completed on a Snow Leopard or Lion Mac and the resulting modified Snow Leopard.cdr install file can then be moved over to your Mountain Lion Mac for completion of the remaining steps.
    NOTE 2:  Computer games with complex, 3D or fast motion graphics make not work well or at all in virtualization.
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    I do not give legal advice on MacRumors,  I do contend that it is a common Urban Myth that the Snow Leopard EULA forbids its virtualization.  Further, in the more than one year that I have been offfering my Snow Leopard into Parallels solution, NO ONE has met my challenge during this period of time to show me one, official written statement by Apple that would support the conclusion that Snow Leopard's EULA forbids its virtualization.
    The method does work for Mountain Lion, with the proviso of the NOTE above about currently having to do STEP ONE on a Snow Leopard or Lion Mac.

  • Is Snow Leopard really the best version of Mac OS X?

    Hello everyone here in the Support Communities,
    Recently I have been given a Mid-2009 Macbook Pro and it is currently running 10.5.8 which I believe is Leopard. I haven't used the Mac OS in years so it's a bit of an adjustment switching over from Windows, but I like it! Anyway, I have been reading around and many users are saying that Snow Leopard is the best Mac OS X version compared to every other one out there. Is this true? Is the upgrade from 10.5.8 to 10.6 worth it?
    Any answer(s) would help greatly.
    Cheers

    Some users think SL is the best Mac OS X...but a lot depends on jsut what apps you want available.  SL gives you the Mac App Store, but it does not give you iCloud.  So there are pluses and minuses.
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  • Where is the best place to get/read information of the pros and cons on updating my OS from Snow Leopard to the current OS?

    Where is the best place to get/read information on the pros and cons of updating my OS from Snow Leopard to the current OS?
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    Apple OS 10.9 Mavericks:
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    MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
    Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
    Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
    Xserve (Early 2009)
    Transitioning your Mac from Mountain Lion to Apple's new OS X 10.9 Mavericks
    http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/23/transitioning-your-mac-from-mountain-l ion-to-apples-new-os-x-109-mavericks

  • I face a problem with my macbook air or i think it's from the lion OS cause i didn't happen with snow leopard OS the massage says ( you can't open the application ....... because powerPC applications are no longer supported) any advice ??

    I face a problem with my macbook air or i think it's from the lion OS cause i didn't happen with snow leopard OS the massage says ( you can't open the application ....... because powerPC applications are no longer supported). any advice ??

    Mac OS X Lion has dropped support for Rosetta, the feature that allowed you to run PowerPC apps on previous OS X systems. Check if you can find a newer version of the app you are trying to run that supports Intel processors.
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