Andrew Wolczyk

Q: Can I still download Mavericks?

I work in an office environment and administer over 20 macs. We've got a few machines that run Mavericks and a few that run Lion. Withe the release of Yosemite last week, I gather Lion is no longer supported, so I wanted to upgrade but as Yosemite hasn't been tested in our environment, I wanted to take all the machines to Mavericks, but it doesn't seem to be available. Is there anywhere that I can still download that installer?

Posted on Oct 20, 2014 5:01 AM

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Q: Can I still download Mavericks?

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  • by msatt,

    msatt msatt Apr 6, 2016 2:31 PM in response to K Shaffer
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 6, 2016 2:31 PM in response to K Shaffer

    Yep.. this is how I stand with my 2007 mac mini... I have to "upgrade" to Lion and let is stand after this upgrade.

     

    I agree that the secondary market for these computers could use a purchasable OSX flash drive. I will be shopping for a "used" machine shortly... I surely need to upgrade. And having a place to purchase these older OS's could be helpful. You can currently purchase Mountain Lion, so maybe Apple will eventually sell Mavericks, etc.

  • by Kurt Lang,

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Apr 6, 2016 3:02 PM in response to msatt
    Level 8 (37,951 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 6, 2016 3:02 PM in response to msatt

    There are plenty of illegal copies of every version of OS X being sold out there. Trouble is, the buyer has zero assurance unwanted items haven't been added to the OS X installer, such as a keylogger, back door, or other nasty surprises.

  • by BobHarris,

    BobHarris BobHarris Apr 6, 2016 5:15 PM in response to msatt
    Level 6 (19,621 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 6, 2016 5:15 PM in response to msatt

    msatt wrote:

    Yep.. this is how I stand with my 2007 mac mini... I have to "upgrade" to Lion and let is stand after this upgrade.

     

    I agree that the secondary market for these computers could use a purchasable OSX flash drive. I will be shopping for a "used" machine shortly...

    I surely need to upgrade.

     

    You could consider an Apple Refurbished unit direct from Apple.  Full warranty included, and they can be 15% or even into the 20's% off list price.

    <http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac>

     

    And having a place to purchase these older OS's could be helpful. You can currently purchase Mountain Lion, so maybe Apple will eventually sell Mavericks, etc.

    Very very unlikely.  Lion and Mountain Lion have remained available.  I think partially because they were sold for real money (not much money, but for money).  There may be some strange legal reason they need to keep them available for some period of time (wild guess).

     

    But Mavericks and Yosemite, were free, so I'm guessing there was not restriction on how long they needed to remain available (again guessing).

     

    From a software development point of view, it is fabulous, in that the likely hood a developer needs to write software for an older version diminishes very quickly.  And we are starting to see that with some software no longer supporting older releases.  Snow Leopard is fast moving into that space.  Lion will be next, etc...

     

    So I'm personally divided.  My developer half likes this.  My forum volunteer half wants the version available for people that ask.

     

    But for now.  Download every major release to make sure you have them available for the future, even if you do not want to upgrade today.

  • by MichelPM,

    MichelPM MichelPM Apr 6, 2016 6:12 PM in response to BobHarris
    Level 6 (13,972 points)
    iPad
    Apr 6, 2016 6:12 PM in response to BobHarris

    That's what I do, but passed on Lion and Yosemite.

    I have El Capitán and most of the previous OS X versions on external hard drives.

    10.7 Lion had some operational and UI issues that got, mostly, worked out in 10.8 Mountan Lion.

    I really liked the newer features of OS X 10.9 Mavericks and Apple worked out most of the leftover kinks that 10.8 still had.

    I passed on 10.10 Yosemite pretty much because I really, REALLY hated the UI (still do in EL Capitán).

    I downloaded El Capitán because, again, I liked the feature set (UI is still  PlaySkool uggo) only to fnd out that my older, late 2009 iMac model can't use some of those new and cool features that I really liked and wanted.

    So, I have hardly used El Cap at all  ( I kept up with all of the updates and other software updates, though) and I don't know if I will or not use this, at some future date, I am contemplating ridding myself of the embarrassing looking OS X, at some point.

    I only have one copy of this. I haven't even bothered cloning El Capitán anywhere at this time.

    If the feature set keeps getting reduced for older model Macs (just like Apple does with iOS an older iDevces), I may completely pass on the next major OS X release.

    If and when the GPU or logic board goes, in my 2009 iMac, I will look for 2011 iMac model that I can stll run my much loved OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard and keep the system setup I have currently.

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Apr 6, 2016 7:49 PM in response to MichelPM
    Level 7 (32,168 points)
    iPad
    Apr 6, 2016 7:49 PM in response to MichelPM

    Interesting; I haven't liked the UI or other features since Lion. I do run the latest on my testing machine - my MBP. On my iMac, I have Mavericks which I need for my movie projects and Yosemite which I use daily; I've found it to be the least objectionable so to speak and if my iMovie and iDVD would work with it, it would be fine. But they don't, hence the Mavericks partition. I still have a bootable SL clone on an external partition - unfortunately, I no longer have a machine that'll boot with it and I'm not even sure it would still boot since it's been copied several times from external to external (and I obviously cannot test it).

  • by baltwo,

    baltwo baltwo Apr 6, 2016 10:24 PM in response to babowa
    Level 9 (62,256 points)
    Apr 6, 2016 10:24 PM in response to babowa

    I thought you had a 27" mid-2011 iMac? That'll boot with SL. 

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Apr 6, 2016 11:00 PM in response to baltwo
    Level 7 (32,168 points)
    iPad
    Apr 6, 2016 11:00 PM in response to baltwo

    Nope - it's a late 2012 purchased as a refurb from Apple in early 2015. Sold my mid 2010 at that time. I thought that was kinda cool: a 2012 purchased in 2015 with Applecare to 2018 and it had Mountain Lion installed when I got it, so I can boot with 4 OS versions if I wanted to.

  • by baltwo,

    baltwo baltwo Apr 7, 2016 1:01 PM in response to babowa
    Level 9 (62,256 points)
    Apr 7, 2016 1:01 PM in response to babowa

    My mistake, then. My refurb's protection plan ends May 22, but I can still boot w/SL. 

  • by gillian holroyd,

    gillian holroyd gillian holroyd Jul 19, 2016 3:42 PM in response to Andrew Wolczyk
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 19, 2016 3:42 PM in response to Andrew Wolczyk

    I"m trying to create a boot disk and it's not possible to re-download Mavericks. I'm looking at my purchases in the App Store and nothing happens if I click on it, the downloaded button is greyed out.

     

    I have the "Install OS X Mavericks.app" on my hard drive (5.35 GB file) but when I try to drag it to my 32 GB flash drive, it says there's not enough room to copy it.

     

    ***?

  • by BobHarris,

    BobHarris BobHarris Jul 19, 2016 4:45 PM in response to gillian holroyd
    Level 6 (19,621 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 19, 2016 4:45 PM in response to gillian holroyd

    DiskMaker X

    <http://diskmakerx.com/>

     

    Should be able to create a bootable USB thumb drive.

     

    If your 32GB  flash drive is formatted FAT, there is a 4GB single file limit for FAT file systems.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Jul 19, 2016 8:56 PM in response to BobHarris
    Level 5 (7,709 points)
    Notebooks
    Jul 19, 2016 8:56 PM in response to BobHarris

    As an alternative to DiskmakerX use Apple's own instructions…

    Create a bootable installer for OS X - Apple Support

  • by gillian holroyd,

    gillian holroyd gillian holroyd Jul 20, 2016 7:46 AM in response to BobHarris
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 20, 2016 7:46 AM in response to BobHarris

    Thank you, it is formatted MS-DOS FAT 32 because I needed to use it on my pc as well but I can reformat it.

  • by BobHarris,

    BobHarris BobHarris Jul 20, 2016 12:03 PM in response to gillian holroyd
    Level 6 (19,621 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 20, 2016 12:03 PM in response to gillian holroyd

    gillian holroyd wrote:

     

    Thank you, it is formatted MS-DOS FAT 32 because I needed to use it on my pc as well but I can reformat it.

    exFAT will support larger files and work on Windows as well.

     

    HOWEVER, to create a bootable installer the file system needs to be "Mac OS  Extended (Journaled)" (aka HFS+)

  • by gillian holroyd,

    gillian holroyd gillian holroyd Jul 25, 2016 10:55 AM in response to BobHarris
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 25, 2016 10:55 AM in response to BobHarris

    I downloaded DiskmakerX and flash drives were on sale last weekend so I'm now working up the courage to wipe my HD and reinstall. (It's been very sluggish since I upgraded to Mav last year.)

  • by sdfulbright,

    sdfulbright sdfulbright Sep 25, 2016 11:00 AM in response to WaitAMin
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 25, 2016 11:00 AM in response to WaitAMin

    For CS6 users, annoyed is the understatement of the year.  Between the Adobe Cloud which basically takes control of your intellectual property if you do not pay the rent, and Apple's lack of support for CS6 (with fixes Mavericks is the latest IOS that will effectively support CS6) it is unlikely I will purchase any products from either in the future.  It's back to Windows and geeky shareware.

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