Updates are nothing to be afraid of

Question

I come in here quite frequently because I see people who are afraid of making updates because other people's experience here, and help out those who have made updates who have failed to take the proper precautions when one does update. I post this post to make sure people know that updates are nothing to be afraid of. Though if you don't take common sense precautions, you have more to fear than if you do. So here are those precautions in a nutshell:
1. Backup your data! It is not a question of if media will fail, but when. Updates may only speed failure on marginal hardware.
2. If your machine is misbehaving now, an update probably won't fix that issue. Ask how to fix your misbehaving machine before applying any update. And make sure to mention whether or not you backed up your data.
3. Check for compatibility issues of third party hardware and software with the updates before applying the updates. Many software titles have to speak to drivers which may have changed with the update. Especially do so for any system modification and utility programs.
4. An ongoing issue with updates is that some third party peripherals won't work if they are connected when an update takes place. If that peripheral is a data storage device, dismount by dragging its icon to the trash before disconnecting the device.
5. Make sure to only apply the update when you aren't doing a series of mission critical tasks. Finish those before applying any updates.
6. Don't allow the update to be interrupted by Energy Saver or any other automatic tasks.
7. Repairing permissions has often been the only maintenance that really is needed with updates. Go to Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility to repair permissions.
8. Make sure to only apply the update when you need it for running a specific software, or new feature that an update includes. In other words, if it isn't broken, don't fix it by applying an update for the sake of applying the update alone.

Answer 1

I'd like to add:
If any of the above steps are unfamiliar, or if you need to know whether a specific feature of an update meets your needs, please post a new topic on that matter, and someone will attempt to help you determine if the update is needed in your situation. You can also use the links on http://www.apple.com/swupdates/ to determine if the update in question has what you need. Sometimes those are posted at the same time as on Software Update, sometimes shortly thereafter.