Can I run Final Cut Express 4 in Mountain Lion?

While it may be possible, I would not advise it. FCE, as you may know, was discontinued over 18 months ago, even before Lion was released. It is not supported on Lion or Mt. Lion.

Some people claim to have installed FCE from scratch on Mt. Lion but I don't know how they accomplished that since the FCE installer requires Rosetta, and Rosetta was discontinued in Lion. And migration from another Mac has not been overly reliable with any of the pro apps including FCE.

Beyond that, users have had inconsistent experience running FCE on Lion & Mt. Lion. Some say it works, others have had inexplicable problems. Of course, the problems always turn up at the least convenient moment, like right at the end of a big project.

If you are using Lion or Mt. Lion, I recommend moving on to Final Cut Pro X.

One thing you could do with your existing MBP would be to use both Snow Leopard and Mt. Lion. Boot from Snow Leopard to run FCE; and boot from Mt. Lion for everyday purposes.

You could do this by either 1) partitioning the system HD in your MBP and installing Snow Leopard + FCE in one partition and Mt. Lion + apps in the other partition or 2) install Snow Leopard + FCE on an external HD and boot from that when you want to edit video.

BTW, Rosetta will install in Lion/Mountain Lion from a Snow Leopard install DVD, and run perfectly. Once that is done, FCE will install, as will other legacy apps that require Rosetta.

oneHvT wrote:

BTW, Rosetta will install in Lion/Mountain Lion from a Snow Leopard install DVD, and run perfectly. Once that is done, FCE will install, as will other legacy apps that require Rosetta.

While there was some discussion on this forum a year ago that installing Rosetta into Lion would allow Final Cut's installer to work, there was also conflicting posts. So unless you have done it yourself, repeating it might lead the OP to much work for nothing! Have you successfuly run the FCE Installer in Lion/Mt. Lion by installing Rosetta?

Legacy apps will NOT run in Mountain Lion or Lion whether or not you attempt to install Rosetta into the OS (other than running them by the "dual-boot" method suggested above or in virtualization).

MlchaelLAX wrote:

Legacy apps will NOT run in Mountain Lion or Lion whether or not you attempt to install Rosetta into the OS (other than running them by the "dual-boot" method suggested above or in virtualization).

Hey Michael.

I agree with the cautionary advice to FCE editors about updating.

But just to let you – and others – know, many people are successfully running legacy Final Cut Studio apps on 10.7 and 10.8.

Russ

Russ H wrote:

MlchaelLAX wrote:

Legacy apps will NOT run in Mountain Lion or Lion whether or not you attempt to install Rosetta into the OS (other than running them by the "dual-boot" method suggested above or in virtualization).

Hey Michael.

I agree with the cautionary advice to FCE editors about updating.

But just to let you – and others – know, many people are successfully running legacy Final Cut Studio apps on 10.7 and 10.8.

Russ

Then these applications are "Universal;" that is written to run on both PowerPC CPU and the Intel CPU and do not require Rosetta, which is missing from Lion/Mt. Lion

Varied results, theoretically no, but theories can be busted.

See here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4142026?start=0&tstart=0

Al

Yes, but the installer that came with original Pro Apps discs requires Rosetta. That is why the workaround of getting Rosetta from a previous OS install disc, and then using Rosetta to run the installer to install the Universal apps.

MtD

Meg: Do you have personal knowledge that installing Rosetta into Lion/Mt. Lion to install this works?

I have yet to hear anyone's first hand confirmation; only repeats of repeats of claims that it works.

First hand knowledge? No, I don't. But, on the other hand, I have yet to see a thread where after that option is given posters have returned to say it did not work. Have you?

MtD

Meg The Dog wrote:

First hand knowledge? No, I don't. But, on the other hand, I have yet to see a thread where after that option is given posters have returned to say it did not work. Have you?

MtD

Bobawa, a well respected contributor to this forum told me the following:

I did install Rosetta and it appeared to work (no error messages), except that the effort seemed to be in vain - a PPC installer then did NOT work. I was not able to install or run AppleWorks.

I was not able to install Final Cut Express - the installer is PPC and did not work. But, since FCE itself is Intel, I was able to manually move every file of the 20 or so over from a previous SL bootable clone and that worked. Without the bootable clone, it would not have worked.

And the posts I have read that suggested it works, is for Lion and NOT Mountain Lion.

Hence, we should be looking for someone credible to confirm that it works before anyone should send someone down that road.

What versions of the Pro Apps was "Bobawa" trying to install?

MtD

If you click on

told me the following:

it will take you to that thread.

I was one of these "install Rosetta into Lion" repeaters, without any direct positive experience; until this discussion with Bobawa.

So it did not work for you?

MtD

No, as noted in that thread, it did not work for Babowa. I have never attempted it.

In my posts helping people with post-Rosetta problems, I stopped advising people to use the so-called "install Rosetta into Lion" method of attempting to get Universal software to work if it had only a PPC Installer.

And I suggest others not do so until the issue is clarified.

Plus, even if it worked in Lion, there is evidence on this forum that it does not work in Mountain Lion.

My original question to your post on this thread was in the hope of tracking down someone who directly had success with this method; not any attempt to be contrary towards you.

Quite honestly, I always found the idea that installing Rosetta in Lion to allow PPC installers to work, but not of the PPC programs themselves somewhat not credible.

Nevertheless, I continue to attempt to find someone with credible direct experience on this issue.