Today I downloaded 8v3 (Mac OS X 10.4.6, Power Book G4, 80G, no network or external disks mounted) and ran per instructions. It hangs, telling me it is "searching." I gave it over an hour while I mowed the lawn. Forced quit and tried again, same result. So, I deleted FMPA8v2, reinstalled from CD, redownloaded 8v2 updater, and it hangs too!. In January (or so) it worked fine. So now what? Any ideas?

Try on a different mac?

The updaters search *all* mounted network volumes for copies of FMP. This can take time and make the application to appear unresponsive.

Unmount all shared volumes before running the updater.

Don't have access to a second Mac. Don't have any other volumes mounted. All permissions okay per Disk Utility. Called FileMaker support. They had me delete the application again, but this time also delete preference files, and reinstall from CD. 8v2 updater still hangs. Called FileMaker back and they're closed for the day.

Do you have any "alias" items referring to remote volumes on your machine?

The problem turned out to be a bad disk directory. Fixed it with DiskWarrior and the update ran fine.