I could create installation from OSX image that is available on torrents, because apple only lets me download updated versions.
What would happen if I use the torrent version? Would there be any activation issues or anything similar?
Are there any other alternatives to downgrade my OS to a previous minor release?
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
Downloading OS X from torrents is illegal and I doubt that you will get any help here.
Clinton
Would be easy to do if you had a Time Machine backup or clone made BEFORE you applied 10.8.2. Now...as you've found out, no official way to do so. So, you want to risk hosing your system by using a torrent?
Good luck.
Fully agree with Clinton and wj...don't do that. What could happen, the Torrents software could be corrupted, could have an installed hack, could have many other things in it. And once installed could be very messy and difficult to cleanup. Plus you will get no help on here or from Apple.
Many of us on here coninutally advise fellow users to make a backup before doing any system software updating or upgrading. If anything goes wrong you need a good copy of your operating system to use to fix things. Best advice righ not is get an external hard drive and clone your system so in the future you have a working copy to revert to.
The Macbook was already purchased with the latest 10.8.2 version, so there was no way for me to make any backups. I need to add specific hardware via thunderbolt, which has issues with the latest OSX version, so I really need to downgrade.
I am aware that downloading software from torrents is illegal, but I really see no alternatives since to my knowledge apple does not let me download an image without the minor updates already present in them.
What would be the best way to get my hands on a 10.8 system image that does not contain minor updates?
What kind of issues are you having with 10.8.2 and Thunderbolt devices? It's likely best to try to isolate that problem than to try to 'downgrade'.
Clinton
I have an Echo Express Pro - http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html
it is a PCI Express adapter that works through thunderbolt. I need it for connecting RED Rocket to my Macbook Pro. Some aspects of RED are not working. I already contacted the customer service at sonnettech, and they informed me that I'm having a known issue that can be solved by downgrading to previous minor update. Either that or wait while they issue a patch or something.
I want to try and downgrade before returning their product.
since i´ve upgraded to 10.8.2 i have problems with various USB devices in Parallels Desktop v7 and v8.
With 10.8.1 there has never been a problem. How can i downgrade to 10.8.1 without having a time machine backup from this time and not wanting to download any torrent?
Isn´t there a way recommended from apple for users which have problems after upgrading???
Each freeware developer gives you the chance to go back to a older, problem free version, but not apple?
With the Mac OS X operating system, there is no Apple supported way of going back...in fact, once a new version has been released, the prior versions are no longer available from Apple.
The only way one can downgrade from 10.8.2 to 10.8.1 is to have a clean copy of 10.8.1 on another source such as an external hard drive, then erase the startup disk and install the prior version. Doing so removes everything on the internal startup disk so you must have a good, up-to-date backup of the material on that drive.
One way of doing this is to use software such as Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the hard drive to an external drive before you install the 10.8.2 update. That way, if you do not like the update you can erase the hard drive and clone the external drive back to the internal drive.
This is a lot of work with a lot of opportunities to make a mess of things so approach it with great caution.
How to downgrade from OSX 10.8.2 to 10.8.1?
