It's not clear to me what you mean by Combo. I downloaded the "single step" updater from the Apple website (http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate1043.html) and had no problems. The only reason I download my updates from the Apple website is so I don't have to download them twice when I want to update my other machine.

 

macsackbut - The combo updaters are designed to update anything previous from 10.4.3 to 10.4.3. So if you had a fresh install of 10.4.0, the combo update would be used rather then three step updates(=>10.4.1, =>10.4.2, => 10.4.3).

Some people say they get better performance with a combo updater, personally I never noticed a difference.

 

Chealion. OK, I guess I wasn't clear (what else is new ). It's just that the poll doesn't list the option I chose, which was the single-step update (10.4.2 > 10.4.3), which I downloaded from the website. At least that's what I think I did. Maybe I'm wrong... but the link I provided above does say that it requires 10.4.2.

 

The version you get from Software Update is the same as the one from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosxupdate1043.html. It updates from 10.4.2 to 10.4.3 only.

The combo updater from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosxupdate1043combo.html, as stated above, updates from 10.4, 10.4.1 or 10.4.2.

I get try to get the Combo for several reasons:

1. In earlier versions of 10.*, the combo resulted in less issues than serial step updates. Often running the appropriate combo would clear up issues resulting from serial updates (much on macosxhint forums on this).

2. I download the system updates, using Sofware Update as more of an indicator, because I have multiple machines to update.

3. If I have to rebuild an OS, the combo (past update *.1) makes it a single step. For example, imagine rebuilding 10.3.9 serially - NINE steps!!! The multiple machines just magnify this issue.

Maybe this is just a case of serendipitous old habits dying hard but my update process is to repair permissions before and after running MacJanitor and then run the appropriate combo. Since I developed this, er, habit I have not had a single issue updating the OS....

YMMV...