Just purchased the new iMac which has no disc drive. That's fine, but I need to upload the discs with my programs (ie iWork '08, Adobe Photoshop). Is there a place I can just download the program and then enter in my product key? I don't want to buy an external drive just so I can upload these discs. Any suggestion?
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
I would buy an external burner/drive; if you don't want to do that, you could purchase them at the app store (iWork is available, don't know about Adobe). I know of no other way to install from an install disk without a DVD drive. Maybe if you had another Mac with a drive, you could install them there and then copy them over - most likely may not work unless you get absolutely every file to copy over.
If you have another Mac you can use Remote Disc which will allow you to use the drive of another Mac on the same network.
I thought of that, but decided not to mention it because I figured that it would not work with Adobe (not sure about iWork) - since the license is only good for one machine. It may not allow you to copy it. I've actually run into that with Final Cut Express.
As I mention in another post - the new iMac seems to me a backward step when we lose SD slot & DVD drive for the sake of thinness we dont need!
I also don't hold out much hope for you being able to solve this without buying the Apple external optical drive. Mainly because as you have found out there are not exactly a multitude of choices of Drives with a Thunderbolt connection that you need.
Maybe, since you have now 4 USB slots a cheap USB DVD drive will work for you.
My Granddaughter uses one on her Mac Mini & its painfully slow & unreliabe when writing. Maybe differnt on new fast iMac USB!!
I do have access to a Macbook Pro so I could go the Remote Disk route. Which type of cable can I use to connect the MB to the iMac? Don't really want to purchase a Thunderbolt cable at this time as I have no use for it. As you can probably tell I'm trying to keep the cost down as much as possible. I just have these 2 discs from iWorks and Adobe Photoshop that I had on my old iMac (which Apple has diagnosed as dead and not worth repairing) and I want these programs on my new iMac.
Another consideration is that iWork 08 may not work on Mountain lion although it is listed as compatible at roaringapps.com. When I installed 08, it did not work until I upgraded it to my 09 version.
OK, so Remote Disc is definitely the way to go if you have another Apple computer with a disc drive. I now have iWork '08 loaded onto my new iMac. Here's what I did:
On the computer with the disc drive go into System Preferences
Click on Sharing
Check off the box that says DVD or CD Sharing
Then on the computer without the disc drive open up a Finder box
Click on Remote Disc
The computer with the disc drive should show in the window
Insert the disc you want into the disc drive
Go back to the Finder window which shows the computer with the disc drive
Double click the icon for the computer and it should open up a window showing the DVD or CD that you inserted in the disc drive.
Worked perfectly for me.
How can I download iWork '08 onto my new 2012 iMac?
