Downgrade Tiger to Panther

I recently upgraded my G3 (and G5 and iBook) from Panther to 10.4.3 and am now having what seems to be pretty common printing problems. I want to take my G3 Blue and White back to Panther. I have Panther upgrade disks but it won't let me update because there's "no earlier version of OS X." It also won't let me go straight from 10.4 to 10.3 either. My original G3 disk is for 8.6 which won't work for the same reason. Thoughts?

G5, Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Posted on Nov 27, 2005 5:58 PM

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12 replies

Nov 27, 2005 6:27 PM in response to Michael Dickey2

Welcome back to Panther! The best OS anyone has yet developed! And, by the way, Tiger -> Panther is an UPGRADE! (even if the version number for Tiger is higher).

OK. Back to the problem at hand. I'm not sure what "upgrade disks" are but you're going to need the full install disks to install Panther. Search around the web (or on this discussion board) and you should be able to find sources that are reasonably priced.

Once you get the disks, you can do an archive and install over Tiger but it will be safer to do an erase and install. Back up all your data files (and applications, also, unless you want to spend a lot more time reinstalling all of those as well).

I've now upgraded 3 machines from Tiger to Panther. It's a bit of a pain but its short-lived compared to continuing with Tiger.

Good luck, and let us know how you make out.

Quicksilver DP 1 GHz, 15 PowerBook Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Nov 28, 2005 7:07 PM in response to Michael Dickey2

I'm kind of stuck without a full Panther OS disk. The ones I have clearly say "upgrade disk #1 (and #2 and #3). I must have bought a full version of OS X at some point, upgraded to Panther for some reduced cost, and then chucked the original OS X disks thinking I had a full working set of the new OS. Lesson learned. Will need to decide whether to live with printing problems or procure Panther...again.

Mike

Nov 28, 2005 7:16 PM in response to cornelius

Cornelius,
I probably should have taken another moment or 2 before posting my reply. Now that I have taken that moment, I DID have a few minor problems with "Archive & Install" over Tiger. Specifically, many of the Tiger versions of the Apple applications won't run under Panther, but the Panther installer won't overwrite them since they are newer. So, I had to trash them first. But, silly me, I had already applied the 10.3.9 combo update, so had to do another "Archive & Install."

Oh, well. Did get Panther back, and I've not regretted my actions in the least. Happy to be rid of Tiger!

Dec 11, 2005 9:02 PM in response to cornelius

Howdy folks,

I've joined the club of "upgrading" from Tiger to Panther - what a nightmare. Anyhow, I'm happily back with Panther and am able to print again. I did a clean install and wiped out any remaining vestige of Tiger. Before doing so I backed up my Mail mbox files and Safari preferences - I've had no problem with my bookmarks in Safari (I just replaced the Bookmarks.plist in Username>Library>Safari with the backed up plist file from Tiger and it seems to work fine).

The Mail issue is a little trickier and I haven't solved it yet. While I have the backed up .mbox files and was able to import them into Mail any email that I received after "upgrading" to Tiger is inaccessible (see this thread for more http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=241962 on why). Apparently it is possible to convert the Tiger mbox file into something that Panther Mail can read only in Tiger itself - but it doesn't look like it can be done after the fact with the backedup Tiger mail boxes. At this point I've got the same mailbox structure but have "empty" mail boxes that weigh in at 16 MB. There's got to be some way to get into them.

Dave

Dec 12, 2005 12:19 PM in response to Dave Ingram

Dave:

I saw your name on another post this a.m.

Concerning your difficulty with Mail, Allan Sampson frequents (Panther) Mail & Address Book and is very good. So click here and post in this area and someone will be better able to help, hopefully Allan Sampson.

Good luck.

c o r n e l i u s

PB G3 Pismo400, 100 GB 5400 Toshiba internal, 1 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Beige G3 OS 8.6

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Downgrade Tiger to Panther

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