Make sure your Mac is supported.
Head over to http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/ to check that your Mac can run OS X Mountain Lion. Aside from the having at least OS X 10.6.8 (or newer), 2GB of RAM, and 8GB of hard disk space, you'll have to check the model of your Mac if it's supported.
Here's a list of supported models:
- Mac (Mid 2007 or newer)
- MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
- Xserve (Early 2009)
- MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
- Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
- Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
To find out your Mac's model, just head to the Apple Menu, click About This Mac, and click More Info... You'll see a screen similar to this in OS X Lion:
If you have a Mac not running OS X Lion, you can download the free MacTracker App from the Mac App Store or from the MacTracker Home Page. You'll get a screen like this one when you click the This Mac option under Categories:
If you need to upgrade your OS version, upgrade now and don't wait until Apple releases Mountain Lion. Their servers are going to be swamped and you may experience slower downloading times.
Make sure your Apps are ready
By this time, most programs you are using should be tested for OS X Mountain Lion. Check all critical software to ensure that you have the latest version, and that it works with OS X Mountain Lion. If it doesn't say, check with their support.
Apple also normally releases upgrades to its own software (iLife, iWork, and other pro apps) either before or during the release day. You can check that through the Software Update option in the Apple Menu.
Although it's not a common occurrence, you may have to re-install an app to make it work with the latest version of OS X. It may be handy to have those installers around during the upgrade.
Backup
Make sure you have the latest backups of your important files, if not all of them. Apple OS updates have become more reliable lately, but it doesn't hurt to have backups. If you haven't already, get an external drive, plug it to your Mac, and turn on Time Machine backups. If you're backing up for the first time, you'll need a couple of hours for it to finish.
You can also clone your whole hard disk to an external drive with a utility like Carbon Copy Cloner or similar in the event that you'd want to revert back to a bootable copy of OS X Lion.
Get your Internet connection ready
The installer for OS X Mountain Lion is expected to be at least 4GB in size, so you'll need a fair amount of time and bandwidth to download it, not to mention additional software updates that may be required by Apple.
Some broadband or 3G connections are capped, meaning that service either slows down, is charged additionally, or is cut off once you reach the download limit. You wouldn't want to hit that limit in the middle of downloading OS X Mountain Lion, so it may be a good idea to throttle down on downloads until the OS update arrives.
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