When updates become available and I choose to initiate one – either through the pop-up message or with the update icon in the application window – I am asked to authenticate with my system password at the very beginning and a second time almost immediately afterward just perform the update. One of these actions seems superfluous. Is there any good reason for the double request?
Hallo,
this process (logically) consist of two separate steps:
old version must prepare the new version (and the old version must be thus authenticated todo this)
the new version must install and configure itself (and must be authenticated as well)
Those two different versions of course cannot “share” this authentication - in general they might be very different (especially when someone deliberately ignores updates for a long time and then decides to get rid of 1y old version, expecting one-step install to the new one). Another reason is that we still support
another update mechanisms (you can drag new app over the old one in /Aplications, just using bare drag’n’drop in Finder), such mechanism also needs authentication, but must end up in the very same installation scenario as the online update. So, two authentications are quite good trade-off here, helping to keep things separated and compatible. But indeed, it might look a bit… superfluous, at first sight.