The Standard Installation

To do the actual installation, open the App Store program on your Mac. If you don’t see “OS X Mountain Lion” advertised right there on the home page, you can find it by searching for mountain lion. Click the price button, and then click again when it changes to say Install (Figure A-1).

When the download begins, behind the scenes, the App Store puts a 3.8-gigabyte program called Install OS X Mountain Lion into your Applications folder.

Tip

If you don’t have a fast Internet connection, or if your Internet provider imposes monthly data limits, you might not be thrilled about the prospect of waiting for a 4-gigabyte download.

Your best bet is to take your Mac to an Apple Store and use its free, fast WiFi to download Mountain Lion (or a friend’s house, a library, a coffee shop…). Alas, Apple no longer sells a flash drive with the installer, as it did for Lion.

Enter your Apple ID and password when you’re asked for it, and enjoy a hot mug of your favorite beverage as the download begins. If you have a typical broadband Internet connection, expect to wait about half an hour.

Figure A-1. Enter your Apple ID and password when you’re asked for it, and enjoy a hot mug of your favorite beverage as the download begins. If you have a typical broadband Internet connection, expect to wait about half an hour.

You’ll know when the downloading is over, because the actual installer opens up automatically and presents you with the proud animal shown in Figure A-2.

The procedure from here:

  1. Click Continue.

    The installer follows a pattern: Read the instructions, make a couple of choices, and then click ...

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