James Curle

Q: Trying to roll back to Yosemite from El Capitan...can I move TM files to older OS?

We're using an older version of Adobe software in our office. Adobe has stopped patching it at this point and is driving everyone to the Cloud version. We don't have the option to move to the Cloud at this time.

 

The older Adobe software we're using does not play well with El Capitan. It works well with Yosemite, however. After installing El Capitan and running into multiple issues, I broke down and wiped my machine clean and did a fresh install of Yosemite and reinstalled all of the software one by one.

 

I am now trying to roll back my coworkers' machines from EC to YS. Since all of our current Time Machine backups are from machines running El Capitan, is there a way to transfer the applications and home folder files from an El Capitan-era backup to a Yosemite backup? Avoiding the arduous process of reinstalling all of the Adobe and Microsoft software would be wonderful if possible.

Posted on Jun 7, 2016 7:09 AM

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Q: Trying to roll back to Yosemite from El Capitan...can I move TM files to older OS?

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  • by James Curle,

    James Curle James Curle Jun 7, 2016 7:11 AM in response to James Curle
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 7, 2016 7:11 AM in response to James Curle

    "is there a way to transfer the applications and home folder files from an El Capitan-era backup to a Yosemite **backup**?"

     

    Sorry, that should read "from an El Capitan-era backup to a new Yosemite install?"

  • by Glenn Leblanc,

    Glenn Leblanc Glenn Leblanc Jun 7, 2016 7:50 AM in response to James Curle
    Level 6 (11,021 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 7, 2016 7:50 AM in response to James Curle

    When you decided to go back to Yosemite, you should have just restored all machines from their TM backups from the last working Yosemite backup available.

     

    You can transfer some home folder files manually with no problems and some applications with no problems.

    Some applications need installers to place on the computer because it involves more than just placing the app in the application folder. The drag an drop applications should be no problem. So you would have to figure which ones need installers and go from there.

    For your home folder, preference files may be different for some functions and and applications. So it probably won't be a good idea to transfer those from your user library. The mail structure is different between Yosemite and El Capitan, so that could be a problem.

     

    You could try using Setup assistant when you first log into the computer after installing the OS on a clean drive. You can transfer the user folder and applications, but you might leave out the preferences. You will still probably run into problems and still have to deal with fixing Mail. Other applications such as Notes had changes and may be a problem also.

     

    You can try it on one machine and see how it works. In any case, be sure to have a current backup of that machine before doing anything to it.

  • by James Curle,

    James Curle James Curle Jun 8, 2016 12:04 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 8, 2016 12:04 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

    Thank you for your input Glenn.

     

    I should've stated more clearly: My coworkers have never had Yosemite on their machines. Our older machines were running Mountain Lion; the two newer ones came pre-loaded with El Capitan. We tried bringing the older machines up to speed with the new ones by jumping all the way from ML to EC. It wasn't until we all started using El Capitan that we noticed that each of us were experiencing issues with the way our version of Adobe's software interacts with the latest OS.

     

    I was the guinea pig to try rolling back to Yosemite (i received one of the newer machines, a retina iMac). I had to reach out to a local Mac technician to obtain a copy of a Yosemite installer because--surprise, surprise--you can't download an installer for an older version of Mac OS X that you haven't previously downloaded. Makes no sense to me, but whatever. So I wiped EC off my machine, installed a fresh copy of Yosemite and then clean-installed all of the Adobe software. And that works to this point.

     

    That was many months ago. We continue to experience El Capitan-related issues despite several rounds of updates, so it's become clear EC and our version of Adobe will never play nice together. We'd like to rollback, but all of our TM backups dating back over a year are all EC backups. In other words, we have no Yosemite backups and even if we did, they'd be so stale they'd be virtually useless.

     

    We don't use Mail and we don't use Notes, so it may be worth a shot.

  • by Glenn Leblanc,

    Glenn Leblanc Glenn Leblanc Jun 8, 2016 12:22 PM in response to James Curle
    Level 6 (11,021 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 8, 2016 12:22 PM in response to James Curle

    Well for the 2 new machines that came with El Capitan, I didn't think they would be capable having an older OS installed on them than what came with them. You said you got it to work, so I can't dispute that.

     

    You can fresh install Yosemite on the computers and migrate user accounts and applications from your current TM backups. I don't see a problem with that. I just would just recommend that you don't transfer preference files with the accounts. You will just need to recreate user settings and customizations to apps manually. This might be an issue with certain software licensing like Microsoft office that may store certain info in the user library preferences.

    However if you want to try migrating the preference files also, then that's up to you. Try it on one machine and see how it works out. I don't know if that will create issues with startup or Finder issues.

     

    In either case, you may experience problems, but much less likely to have problems without the preference files. So basically you will only be migrating the user account with it's data files and the applications in addition to the apple installed ones.

     

    Just be prepared if one option doesn't work out, that you have current backups.

  • by James Curle,

    James Curle James Curle Jun 8, 2016 1:08 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 8, 2016 1:08 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

    I believe when the Retina iMacs were first released, they shipped with Yosemite. When we received ours, El Capitan had been out a few months and I believe at some point they started shipping straight from the factory with EC instead of Yosemite. That might explain why the hardware in ours can run Yosemite as well as EC.

     

    Or maybe I'm misremembering things. I'm pretty sure they came preloaded with EC but maybe it was Yosemite after all. I do know we all had EC on our machines before we started loading up the Adobe software because we wanted to have everyone fresh with the new OS and not do an OS upgrade on our older machines shortly after loading up our Adobe software.

     

    I can tell you that I rolled back to Yosemite and not Mavericks because the Retina iMacs CANNOT run Mavericks (and obviously anything earlier). Supposedly the last version of Mavericks was even more stable than Yosemite and I was disappointed I couldn't rollback further. Nevertheless, Yosemite has not given me any problems thus far and seems to work just fine with our Adobe software.

  • by Glenn Leblanc,

    Glenn Leblanc Glenn Leblanc Jun 8, 2016 1:45 PM in response to James Curle
    Level 6 (11,021 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 8, 2016 1:45 PM in response to James Curle

    Well you can pull the model from system information and get the tech specs and it will tell you what it came with. If you can install Yosemite, then it probably came with it originally.

     

    I found Yosemite to be very stable with the latest updates for it. You should have no problems.