I recently purchased one of the newer macbook pro models with Mavericks pre-installed. Is it possible to downgrade the OS to Lion or Mountain Lion? It's fine if the drive is erased in the process.
Unfortunately my company's IT department doesn't support Mavericks yet - I need to use one of the older versions to use the computer on the company network.
MACBOOK PRO (RETINA, 15-INCH, LATE 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9)
Welcome to Apple Support Communities
The Late 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina display is not compatible with OS X Lion and Mountain Lion, as they haven't got drivers to make your computer work correctly.
If you need an older OS X version, return the MacBook Pro and get a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion or Lion. Unfortunately, this is the only solution, as it's illegal to install Lion or Mountain Lion on a virtual machine in a Mac that came with a newer OS X version
Where does it say its illegal to run older Mac OSes virtualized? I understand you that can legally install Lion or Mountain Lion on a virtual machine as long as its on Apple hardware and purchased a license.
I'm test running Mavericks 10.9 in VMware Fusion Pro 6.0 before we deploy it on our corporate environment. And it has support for 10.8, 10.7, and both older OSX Server editions.
We just ran into this issue ourselves.
We work in a secure environment that for any new OS's, HW, SW, etc, we need to run through a lenghty testing/tiering process. We just spent the last year trying to get 10.8 Mountain Lion approved so we can upgrade our current outdated macs (still running 10.6).
When they displayed the new 15" Retina MacBook's a few weeks back, we talked to our vendor who initially stated that these systems would be backwards compatible with Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and did not see any readily available information that stated otherwise on the Apple Support sites.
I initially wanted to order one system for testing when they first came out but management decided to order a few dozen, thinking that they were compatible.
We finally get them in and of course they are not compatible with 10.8 Mountain Lion, which is currently the only Mac OS that is approved for our environment, and we can't just test/approve 10.9 Mavericks to use since again there is a lengthy process we need to go through to test/approve the OS.
So now we have to send about 50 of them back and hope that we can somehow get our hands on about 50 of the previous gen 15" MacBook Pro's that we need.
Hopefully Apple will come out with some sort of fix for these new systems to be compatible with Mountain Lion.
Has anything changed here? I want to buy a retina, but I do not want to use mavericks. (Finder-Swipe-Problem, irritating Launchpad-Animation, VPN-Problems - mountain lion can do better).
Is it possible in the meantime to install Moutain Lion - or is it still
a No-Go?
Still a No-Go. The current MBP Retinas all come pre-installed with OS X Mavericks. You would need to find a retailer who sells used MBP Retinas that came pre-installed with OS X Lion or Mountain Lion.
Late 2013 MacbookPro downgrade to Lion/Mountain Lion
