Will the new MBP still run Snow Leopard?

Yes it will, and with a pretty good performance.

I own a new MBPro and SL is working perfekt with it.

Have a lot of fun

Lupunus

I'm a little more catious on that one. It rather depends on when it left the factory I think. If Lion was loaded over SL while the MBP was in the supply chain, then it should run SL ok.

If it entered the supply chain with Lion already loaded and no previous OS, then the answer would likely be no.

(Not very helpful answer I know 😐 )

Cant belief that.

Depending on the actually used hardware in the MBPro it should be clearly possible to install SL or downgrade from factory installed Lion to SL if one want so.

What you think will prevent the owner from installing SL or downgrading to it?

Lupunus

As far as I know, the currently-shipping MBPs, iMacs, and Mac Pros are still the same hardware models that earlier shipped with Snow Leopard, and so they are still capable of running Snow Leopard provided you have the proper install discs for them. I don't think that you can use a retail Snow Leopard disc for this - the latest retail version is OS X 10.6.3, which is presumably too old for the current machines - they all shipped with higher versions than this. Presumably the only Snow Leopard install disc that would work directly on a new MBP would be the grey-label machine-specific disc that had originally shipped with that model before it started shipping with Lion. See this thread - the OP there requested such a Snow Leopard disc from Apple for a new iMac, and they sent him one free of charge. There's no guarantee that Apple would do this, though.

The new Mac Minis and MacBook Airs have new hardware, and can never run Snow Leopard.

Hi

As far as I can remember it was always impossible to downgrade to an older Os that the one the machine came with.

So to answer you're question, if the dealer had a MBP with SL on it and did himself the upgrade to Lion, then yes.

If it was factory shipped with Lion the answer is "sadly" no ...

That's why I bought my MBP the day before Lion was on the market. 😉

Cheers

Lupunus

See jsd2's reply.

No I can't be sure that a new MBP won't accept SL; but you can't guarantee that it will.

So unless you're able to indemnify the OP in case he splashes out £2000+ only to find he can't load SL, please be more cautious .

The bottom line is caveat emptor.

The Early 2011 MacBook Pro being sold can still run Snow Leopard, I have such a machine here.

There is no hardware/driver difference as yet, perhaps not for long. Apple is keeping it's downgrade options open for now.

Just c boot off the 10.6.3 Snow Leopard install disk, use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the whole drive (deletes the Lion Recovery Partition) and install.

Make sure to make bootable copies of the Snow Leopard install disk

http://www.walterjessen.com/make-a-bootable-backup-snow-leopard-install-disc/

As you know, the Retail Disks of OS X don't contain the free iLife that comes with new Mac's (in the past on the grey disks or now on MAS)

I don't care much for Lion, less than stellar GUI's can be had for a lot less in hardware costs.

J ust c boot off the 10.6.3 Snow Leopard install disk, use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the whole drive (deletes the Lion Recovery Partition) and install.

Have you successfully used the retail SL DVD (OS X 10.6.3) to install Snow Leopard on your 2011 MBP, rather than the grey-label 10.6.6 or 10.6.7 disc that came with it?

jsd2 wrote:

Have you successfully used the retail SL DVD (OS X 10.6.3) to install Snow Leopard on your 2011 MBP, rather than the grey-label 10.6.6 or 10.6.7 disc that came with it?

I will try it again right now to confirm (I have a clone so I can be back soon).

...

No can't boot from the 10.6.3 retail disk (just beeps, flash the firmware?), perhaps if someone got a copy of the 10.6.7 grey disks matching the machine model they can downgrade Lion to SL.

The above link seems to work on the 10.6.7 grey disks, I've made several copies myself. (please don't ask me thnks)

noodaywitch,

What Change Agent asked is, in my understanding, was, "If I bye a MBPro in near future, will it be possible to install SL on it?"

And my answer was clear. If one will bye a actual model of MBPro, it will be possible to install SL.

The OS is not hardware branded to a specific kind of MacBook, but from a specific point on the older OS will noit longer support the new hardware. Thats the point.

What is also clear is, that from the moment on Apple changes the technical design of MBP, it will be not longer possible to install SL by the lack of hardware support in SL.

At least, as long as Apple did not roll out a new hardware base for MBP, or make major changes (e.g. future graphic adapter) in the used hardware design, it will be possible to install SL on it.

Lupunus

No can't boot from the 10.6.3 retail disk (just beeps), perhaps if someone got a copy of the 10.6.7 grey disks matching the machine model they can downgrade Lion to SL.

Yes, that's what I had said earlier. 😉

jsd2 wrote:

J ust c boot off the 10.6.3 Snow Leopard install disk, use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the whole drive (deletes the Lion Recovery Partition) and install.

Have you successfully used the retail SL DVD (OS X 10.6.3) to install Snow Leopard on your 2011 MBP, rather than the grey-label 10.6.6 or 10.6.7 disc that came with it?

I've bought a 2011 MBPro 4 weeks ago and it comes with SL 10.6.3 out of the box.

So I just changed the Harddrive from my MB 2008 to the MBP and that works perfect after a few minutes that the Kernel hardware detection needs to adapt the different chipset, graphics and so on.

Lupunus

lupunus wrote:

I've bought a 2011 MBPro 4 weeks ago and it comes with SL 10.6.3 out of the box.

So I just changed the Harddrive from my MB 2008 to the MBP and that works perfect after a few minutes that the Kernel hardware detection needs to adapt the different chipset, graphics and so on.

Lupunus

So it's really a EFI firmware blocking earlier versions of 10.6 from booting on 2011 hardware, wipe the entire drive or replace it and one can do what they want as long as they can get the hardware drivers.

Of course wiping a drive from Lion is no easy task without a disk, likely something like a burned ISO of DBAN or PartedMagic will do the trick.

I own a new late 2011 mbp that shipped with Lion already on it. I'v not really been happy with Lion so I tried to install my copy of SL that came with my late 2010 Mac mini onto it and ran into a kernal panic so after some research on the all mighty goolge I found out that yes it is still possibly to install SL on a mbp that shipped with lion you have to google for a iso image of SL6.7 that was put on 2011 mbp's before the relase of lion then update it after installed to fix bugs with the trackpad. Trust me I'v done this and it runs good as gold hope this helps someone.