Is it possible to install Snow Leopard on early 2012 MBP?

Read this: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2186

The way you're trying to install SL won't work. You need the install DVD, for SL, that originally shipped for your specific model. The only place to get this DVD is from AppleCare. However, I don't believe they will send you one. Up until the release of the late 2011 MacBook Pros(your model), it was possible to call AppleCare, give them your model identifier & SN and get the SL install DVD for your specific model. It's my understanding that AppleCare has now stopped doing this. Regardless, that's what you need, if you want to install SL.

What you need is a 10.6.7 or 10.6.8 install disk, ideally for a 15" MacBook Pro. Apple does not sell these disks. They would have shipped with early 2011 MacBook Pro's that had SL installed. Up until the release of the late model 2011 MacBook Pro's, you could call AppleCare and get these disks mailed to you. It's my understanding they will no longer mail these disks if you own a late 2011 MacBook Pro.

I have no good suggestions on how to get what you need, I'm just trying to tell you what you need. Get these disks & you can install SL on your computer.

Hi,

I'd like to confirm that it IS possible to run Snow Leopard on a late 2011 MBP 15" (CTO, 2.2 GHz i7), bought in fev. 2012) without ANY FLAW although AppleCare technicians told me that it is not possible ! - Which is clearly not true:

The correct answer would have been: It is NOT recommended and certainly NOT supported 😉. - But hey, we have some scientific software and also Adobe products that only run smoothly on Snow Leopard and all our other Mac's are on SL so I had to give it a try to stay productive. And personally, I'm not really happy with Lion, but that's an other story.

1. As I couldn't lay my hands on a original MBP 15" Install-DVD from last summer (10.6.7) which should allow you to boot the MBP15" directly from it, I did a clean 10.6.7 install with my iMac 27" (iMac11,1 - i7 2.8 GHz) on an external hard drive starting from a 10.6.3 iMac install DVD and applying all the updates up to 10.6.7.
2. Then I formatted my MBP internal drive in target disk mode and created 3 partitions (SL, Lion, Bootcamp).
3. Using CarbonCopyCloner I cloned the clean SL installation one the first partition, then disconnected the MBP and booted in SL.
4. There was a little glitch with the splash screen resolution but nothing serious. Now I ran the 10.6.8 combo update that I downloaded before and did all the software updates and another reboot. That done SL runs now without any problem - not one incompatibility issue in one month (would have been surprised because there were no major hardware changes 🙂).
5. As next step I rebooted the MBP holding the command-R keys to start from the Apple servers and did a new Internet install of Lion on the second partition.
6. And last I installed Windows 7 on the third partition reformatting it using NTFS (be careful to choose the right partition - by the way there is a fourth partition : the rescue partition created by Lion you don't want to touch).
7. Once Win7 installed I ran the Bootcamp Assistant and did all updates.

And so we have now a triple boot MBP15" allowing us to use all the software we need without the slightest problem. You could probably even try a quadruple boot adding a Linux partition...

Be careful! I wouldn't bet that this method works for all new MBP and MBA so you want to make sure your model ran with SL back in summer 2011 and had no major hardware changes before trying!

I neither do know if my method worked because the iMac 27" and the MBP15" both have a i7 Quad Core.

It took me about three whole days to figure all this out, not at all the old Apple-easy-to-use-best-user-experience-and-be-productive-style I knew for 25 years!

have fun!