Alright, I'm having to reinstall 10.3.7 for the fourth time today. I must be dense... (we need a test-flight mode that will give you a summary of what it's about to do...)

Here's what I would like to do:

I want to copy (not have just symbolic links) all files from (source) drive to (target) drive that are in the /Users directory. I don't want anything else on the target drive touched.

Essentially, I'd like to be able to have Mac OS X 10.3.7 on the (target) and 10.3.9 on the (source) and from either of them, copy any newly changed files from one to the other.

Now, I've just ascertained that using "ignore *" and "ignore .*" with Smart Update will remove all the files on the target that are ignored. So, if I do:

ignore *
ignore .*
copy Users

This would result in, as you said, a drive with only a /Users/ directory on it.

What I would like to do is much more simple... similar to the behavior of rsync. Where the script would compare the contents of the /User directory trees and do a Smart Update (or only copy newer) between them so that only the truly new files are copied from one session to the other.

Is this possible? I would seem so... I feel silly for not being able to figure it out.

No, it's not possible, at least at present. The behavior of Smart Update is always against an entire volume.

However, there's a better way to achieve what you want. Use a Safety Clone. With a safety clone, you can share the your user data between 10.3.7 and 10.3.9 without having to worry about reconciling the data...

Well, I'll try this... I had some aversion to this... for example, when in the sandbox and, say, unzipping a zip file (which means you're really unzipping the file on the original drive), does it create links for everything you've unzipped on the source that are then available in the sandbox?

I can't imagine that reinstalling the OS over a system where the user files are all symbolic links would work... but I'll try it just to be adventurous. -Joe

The thing is, we're only sharing (symlinking) a few folders, including your Home and a critical one in Library. If you're concerned about what we're doing, please feel free to examine the scripts themselves.

It really does work, and many of us do this all the time. I'm running from a Safety Clone as I type...