Apple today released the second maintenance update to its relatively new Tiger operating system.

The 10.4.2 Update delivers overall improved reliability and compatibility for Mac OS X v10.4 and is recommended for all users.

According to the release notes, Mac OS X 10.4.2 delivers bug fixes to the following areas of the Tiger system: file sharing using AFP and SMB/CIFS network file services; single sign-on authentication and reliable access to Active Directory servers; autologin for managed user accounts; AirPort and wireless access; and synchronizing your iDisk with .Mac.

Mac OS X 10.4.2 also packs improvements to Address Book, Automator, iCal, iChat, Mail, Safari, Stickies, the Finder, installation reliability, Core Graphics, Core Audio, Core Image, and ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers.

With the release, Apple has delivered significant improvements to Tiger's Dashboard widget management environment, including a new Widget Manager.

More detailed information on this on the Mac OS X 10.4.2 update is available from Apple's website.

Here's a screen of the widget manager:

I'm looking forward to installing this when I get home. Hopefully it will fix my AirPort Extreme autoconnect issues.

I just installed it now, about to reboot. A report will follow.

By the way, when repairing permissions after the update it listed the following:

We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets. New permissions are 16877
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./usr/lib/php/build/acinclude.m4. New permissions are 33060

Perhaps that is new? Not sure.

Anybody got the build number? Is 8C46 the GM?

Well I can't seem to download the 10.4.2 update, the network keeps timing out. I did however download the update for iSync. I rebooted my computer and now almost all my settings are gone. My iTunes library has been reset, all my custom playlists are gone. This bites man! My custom icons in my dock all disappeared too. Gee Whiz!