upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion...or higher

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Level 1

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upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion...or higher

Back in my windows pc days, they always warned against upgrading to the next new os because it usually caused major problems. Is this the case with mac? My mac is about 4 years old and running Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

I'm not having any problems with it and I have been very happy. But I can't use a newer version of Safari than what I now have and I'm afraid that apple will stop supporting the older operating systems sooner or later. So just how risky is it, to try and upgrade? Thanks.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Dec 10, 2013 8:20 PM

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Answer 1

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Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Dec 10, 2013 8:25 PM in response to oldhippie51

Not risky at all. Get an external hard drive or create a new partition on your hard drive. Install Mavericks on one or the other. Then you need not risk your current system at all, but you can check out all your software and give the new OS a spin.

Upgrading to Mavericks

You can upgrade to Mavericks from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Mavericks can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for FREE.

Upgrading to Mavericks

To upgrade to Mavericks you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Lion installed. Download Mavericks from the App Store. Sign in using your Apple ID. Mavericks is free. The file is quite large, over 5 GBs, so allow some time to download. It would be preferable to use Ethernet because it is nearly four times faster than wireless.

Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mavericks

1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 7,1 or later

2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 5,1 or later

3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 2,1 or later

5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

7. Xserve (Early 2009) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.

Are my applications compatible?

See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps.

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Answer 2

oldhippie51 Author

Level 1

10 points

Dec 10, 2013 9:13 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks for the quick reply. It's very tempting but I've been thinking about what will be affected if I leap frog over the lions and go right to Mavericks..... when I bought the mac, I also bought iworks to install on it. Would that need to be upgraded too? I do use a word processor quite a bit.

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Dec 11, 2013 12:43 PM in response to oldhippie51

You have little choice unless you don't mind laying out $40 for Lion and Mountain Lion in order to get Mavericks which would be free.

Yes, iWork would need to be upgraded depending on which version you now use. Many are not very happy with the newest iWork upgrade.

There are many word processors better than Pages such as Word in Office 2011 and the word processor that is part of the freeware suite, Libre Office.

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Answer 4

oldhippie51 Author

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10 points

Dec 11, 2013 1:38 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks Kappy. I will do a back up through Time Machine, just because I should anyhow.... then run down to the apple store in Tampa and check out the Mavericks operating system before I decide which os I will upgrade to.

I did some research online last night, and checked out the iwork upgrades. I will also check into the link you gave me for Libre Office. I have never had the first problem with this mac, so I hesitate to mess with it but I really want to use a later version of Safari, for security reasons.

Thanks again for all your input.

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Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Dec 11, 2013 1:41 PM in response to oldhippie51

Didn't know there was an "old hippie" left in Tampa. 😁

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Answer 6

oldhippie51 Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 31, 2014 3:13 PM in response to Kappy

Greetings Kappy,

Hope you are staying warm.... I finally got around to upgrading my OS but I only went one notch, to LION. I mainly wanted a newer version of safari as I was having some problems with the version in Snow Leopard and was too chickent to jump ahead too many notches at one time.

The upgrade went fairly well, with a couple of glitches I haven't found answers for yet. In the mail program, the old version was set so that there was no preview pane. I didn't want the mail to be opened automatically. I want to double click it to open it. Currently, the email shows several lines of text and it not in a list of emails. I have searched and clicked around in the program tryinig to figure it out but no luck.

The other glitch is not a biggie either..... my magic mouse will not swipe between pages anymore. I went into settings and it's still set for 2 finger swipe but it doesn't work that way.

If you or anyone else has any suggestions, please let me know.....and by the way, there's a few old hippies left down here. LOL

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Answer 7

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 31, 2014 3:21 PM in response to oldhippie51

Lion and later applications can be quite different from Snow Leopard or earlier. It will take you some time exploring before you may get used to the differences. Actually, you should find Mavericks much better than Lion in terms of overall performance, but it has even more changes to adapt to.

Where in Tampa are you?

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Answer 8

oldhippie51 Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 31, 2014 3:34 PM in response to Kappy

Hello again,

Just came back to say I found the solution to the mail problem..... sure, as soon as I go ask for help...grin.

I have noticed quite a few "differences that I will have to get used to. Finger scrolling is the exact opposite of what Snow Leopard was.... but it makes more sense. I used to draw the fingers down to scroll up. Now you move them up to scroll up...just an old habit to break. The 2 finger swipe of the mouse to go back or foward a page, I will miss that feature if I can't get it back. But it's not a major thing.... I didn't want to upgrade to Mavericks just for the reason you mentioned....and because I do have "iwork" word processing on here. I see that when you upgrade to Mavericks, the upgrade in iwork has been unsatisfactory.

Oh, and Lion was only $20. Free would have been better but I'm not complaining.

I'm not actually in Tampa. About 50 miles North of there in the Port Richey area. You a snow bird? This cool stuff we're having right now, probably not a big deal to you.

Message was edited by: oldhippie51

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Answer 9

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 31, 2014 3:36 PM in response to oldhippie51

I'm in Tampa Palms about 3 miles south of the freeway.

We are not snowbirds. Tampa is our permanent home. We only summer in Vancouver where we have another residence.

I did not grow up in the South, so I'm used t cold weather, but I don't care for it. I don't mind the 60s much, but the 40s and 50s are too cool for my preferences.

Off to make dinner. Kappy is leaving the building. 😁 Be back later.

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