Updating Macos - to High Sierra or Mojave

[Dave2002]

I brought my Mac Mini out of storage yesterday, and checked that it works. Seems it runs on El Capitan. I'd quite like to update the OS, but I have heard not so good things about Catalina, and indeed some software, such as Wine which might be useful for running some Windows software, doesn't yet run with Catalina. One person I know installed Catalina, but then spent hours trying to revert to Mojave, because of software incompatibilities. Fortunately it was possible to do that, as I'd provided appropriate back up tools, and storage devices.

I might actually have a High Sierra or Mojave installer somewhere, but I'm not sure if these are computer specific. Also, I have watched other people do a step by step update of Macos through a sequence of versions, so I think it's possible to do that, if one can find a site which has the relevant installers.

My preferred route would be to High Sierra first, then Mojave - and avoid the final step to Catalina until I'm sure that it might actually work.

Does anyone here have experience of this sort of thing, or know where the site with previous installers is?

[Lordgeous]

I brought my Mac Mini out of storage yesterday, and checked that it works. Seems it runs on El Capitan. I'd quite like to update the OS, but I have heard not so good things about Catalina, and indeed some software, such as Wine which might be useful for running some Windows software, doesn't yet run with Catalina. One person I know installed Catalina, but then spent hours trying to revert to Mojave, because of software incompatibilities. Fortunately it was possible to do that, as I'd provided appropriate back up tools, and storage devices.

I might actually have a High Sierra or Mojave installer somewhere, but I'm not sure if these are computer specific. Also, I have watched other people do a step by step update of Macos through a sequence of versions, so I think it's possible to do that, if one can find a site which has the relevant installers.

My preferred route would be to High Sierra first, then Mojave - and avoid the final step to Catalina until I'm sure that it might actually work.

Does anyone here have experience of this sort of thing, or know where the site with previous installers is?

You can buy very cheap installers (on USB sticks) on ebay. They've worked fine for me.

[MrGongGong]

I went straight from Yosemite to Mojave no problem at all
I would avoid Catalina as many things don'r run on it.
I think there should be a pile of old OSX about

https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/download-old-os-x-3629363/

[HighlandDougie]

As someone who has gone down the Catalina route - and, at times, has regretted it* - this makes for interesting reading:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2020/02/02/apple-macos-catalina-10-15-3-release-should-you-upgrade-macbook-pro-air-mac-imac-video-promode-security-bugs/#2650651367d6

* My experience has been coloured by almost-trashing an almost-new MacBook Pro with a glass of wine (very bad idea), replacing it with a new machine (same spec) and then getting the dead one repaired. I've therefore had two machines which came with what came before Catalina (I can't even remember what that was now) - and, harangued by the "Software Update" reminders, duly upgraded to Catalina. One lesson that I did learn from the various chaos(es) which ensued is that, if, like my machines, they only have USB-C ports, it's a really good idea to have a USB-C to Ethernet adapter to hand. That way, when you have a machine with no operating system on it and therefore no means of connecting to wi-fi, you can make a physical connection to a router and download the iOS using the appropriate macOS recovery command. So, not a bad idea to stay where you are.

[muzzer]

I’m running High Sierra on an old Mac so it can still run iTunes on those apps that Catalina doesn’t like, There are d/ls of bootable versions of HS out there, or save an old version. It’s doable. Apols don’t have more details to hand.

[Dave2002]

I went straight from Yosemite to Mojave no problem at all
I would avoid Catalina as many things don'r run on it.
I think there should be a pile of old OSX about

https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/ma...-os-x-3629363/

Thanks very much for this - it looks as though it might be useful, and will help fix the latest problems.

This article seems very comprehensive.

Keeping Macs in order seems to be getting harder, though I can't believe that it would be better to revert back to Windows. I really don't like Apple's belief that everyone uses their cloud - but maybe Windows now behaves in a similar way. What part of "I don't want to live in any of your clouds, or have all my devices linked, and be tracked everywhere because I might have just one mobile device within your ecosystem, and I certainly don't want these to be default 'options' " do these technology firms not understand?