Numerous sources are contending that Snow Leopard has reached golden master status, meaning that the latest builds are most likely what will end up on store shelves come September. In fact, one source even suggests it may be released as early as August 28th. Whenever you get your hands on it, though, Snow Leopard will offer a number of improvements to the installation process.

First, the options for "Erase and Install" and "Archive and Install" have apparently been removed. "Erase and Install" is still an option, should you need it, in Disk Utility. If you ever need to reinstall Snow Leopard, it will automatically archive and install. It won't undo any system upgrades—if you've updated to 10.6.1, for instance, the installer will leave any updated files alone, so you won't have to reapply those updates.

To head off many common installation problems, Snow Leopard also has a few built-in protections. It won't install on a hard drive that reports SMART failures. To prevent issues with "haxies" or other software causing boot problems, the Snow Leopard installer will scan for known problem software and move it to a folder labelled "Incompatible Software." And, if for some reason there is a power failure during the install process, it will pick right back up from where it was halted—that is slick.

To improve the install speed, the installer copies most of the necessary files to the hard drive in one huge chunk, and then performs the install from the hard drive. If you have ever installed Mac OS X from a disk image instead of a DVD, you know this method is way faster. When installation is complete, the extraneous installer files are automatically deleted.

Finally, Snow Leopard has a number of optional installs that keep the size of Mac OS X down to a minimum. First, printer drivers will only be installed for the currently installed printers on you machine. Additional drivers will be installed on demand when needed, saving a few gigabytes. Further, Rosetta and QuickTime 7 are optional installs. Rosetta is required for PPC-only software, though most software has been updated to Universal binary, and Rosetta may not be needed. Also, QuickTime X will be the default media player, but plenty of software is still coded to use QuickTime 7 and its facilities for media playback. However, if a machine has a license for QuickTime Pro, QuickTime 7 will be installed automatically.

All these changes to the install process should make for a smooth transition to the latest, greatest OS from Cupertino. Who's lining up to install on day one?