Getting old OS versions just keeps getting harder!

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Getting old OS versions just keeps getting harder!

After much frustration and pain searching, I finally found this page which has links to actually open the old installers in the new App Store - only the Get/Download button is showing as "Update" and when I click on it it takes me to Software Update in System Preferences which does a check for updates to my current version, Monterey.

Is there a way Apple could make finding installers for older machines any more difficult? I support a small business that runs their mission-critical software on High Sierra and cannot upgrade without changing their whole business model. It's ridiculous and frustrating that Apple can't make older versions of their software available for THEIR OWN HARDWARE. GRRR!

Posted on Jul 27, 2022 6:50 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 28, 2022 8:04 AM in response to MrHoffman

$ softwareupdate --list-full-installers
Finding available software
Software Update found the following full installers:
* Title: macOS Monterey, Version: 12.5, Size: 12112497KiB, Build: 21G72
* Title: macOS Monterey, Version: 12.4, Size: 11819688KiB, Build: 21F79
* Title: macOS Monterey, Version: 12.3.1, Size: 11938730KiB, Build: 21E258
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.6.8, Size: 12118851KiB, Build: 20G730
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.6.7, Size: 12121823KiB, Build: 20G630
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.6.6, Size: 12121263KiB, Build: 20G624
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.6.5, Size: 12121404KiB, Build: 20G527
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.6.4, Size: 12147782KiB, Build: 20G417
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.6.3, Size: 12143674KiB, Build: 20G415
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.6.2, Size: 12141944KiB, Build: 20G314
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.6.1, Size: 12137180KiB, Build: 20G224
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.5.2, Size: 12149332KiB, Build: 20G95
* Title: macOS Catalina, Version: 10.15.7, Size: 8055650KiB, Build: 19H15
* Title: macOS Catalina, Version: 10.15.7, Size: 8055522KiB, Build: 19H2
* Title: macOS Catalina, Version: 10.15.6, Size: 8055450KiB, Build: 19G2021
* Title: macOS Mojave, Version: 10.14.6, Size: 5896894KiB, Build: 18G103
* Title: macOS High Sierra, Version: 10.13.6, Size: 5099306KiB, Build: 17G66

There are some older installers around and referenced in the support article on older versions of macOS, but those installers are weird; they're packaged differently and have additional setup steps, as described in the support article.

How to get old versions of macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Jul 27, 2022 7:00 PM in response to Stewar

What’s your plan for getting off of High Sierra, whether to newer macOS or to another platform? High Sierra is falling off network connectivity support, and security fixes. (And yes, I still deal with macOS Server, so I’m aware of some of the dependencies that can exist here. But High Sierra is getting old enough that you’re either going to need ro migrate on your own schedule, or can migrate on the schedule the hardware and software and external dependencies will inevitably conspire to set for you.)

As for getting installers:

softwareupdate --list-full-installers
sudo softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version x.y.z

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Answer 3

Stewar Author

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Jul 27, 2022 7:18 PM in response to MrHoffman

Until such time as the business can find a replacement for their accounting & inventory management software, we're stuck on the last version the vendor supported - which I have been assuming is High Sierra but could be in fact Catalina. Either way the current plan is to run the old OS in a VM in VirtualBox so at least I can upgrade their desktops to Monterey and get all that sweet, sweet MS Exchange support we desperately need after retiring my old Linux & OSX Server mail & calendar setup earlier this year.

Anyway thank you for taking the time to reply, your answer is very helpful, especially if MYOB (for it is they) will run on Catalina. Cheers!

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Answer 4

Stewar Author

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Jul 27, 2022 9:13 PM in response to Stewar

Update 1: MYOB only runs on <=10.14

Update 2: This git repo seems extremely promising, the python script appears to know about all the older versions that softwareupdate doesn't and I'm currently using it to download Mojave. yay!

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