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How do I run an earlier version of OS X (Leopard) on my Mac that runs on Yosemite?

I recently came across a circumstance where I needed to run OS X 10.5 Leopard or 10.6 Snow Leopard on my Mac, but I want to keep OS 10.10 Yosemite as my default. The closest I came to solving this problem was partitioning a new drive on disk utility and installing the operating system on the new drive. The only problem is that you can't install any old software on Yosemite and It stops you from even opening the OS X installer.

How do I "dual-boot" an older version of OS X alongside with Yosemite? Please help!

Posted on Sep 26, 2015 11:07 PM

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6 replies

Sep 27, 2015 12:08 PM in response to gcarmel

That is not "dual boot." And, that Mac cannot boot from anything earlier than Yosemite.


The only way to virtualize Snow Leopard would be to use Snow Leopard Server (US$20 on the retail web store). That is the only version that is licensed to be virtualized. All of the legitimate VM software honors that license agreement and won't virtualize the non-server version.

Sep 28, 2015 12:16 PM in response to Barney-15E

The VM companies don's support non-Server Snow Leopard VMs, that's true. But what isn't true is that they don't support it because of the end user license agreement. There's no restriction in the non-Server Snow Leopard against installing it in a virtual machine. There is some other reason they don't support it. It's obvious to me that Apple made that a condition when licensing them the boot ROM code. Apple didn't want non-Server virtual machines, but since they didn't include such a prohibition in the end user license agreement, getting the middleman to block it was a way to achieve the same effect.

The VM companies aren't in the business of enforcing end user license agreements. Those are between Apple and the end users, not them. If the VM companies were in that business, they would block 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9 installations on host Macs running 10.10. Those are all license violations but the VM companies don't block those, because like I said, that's not the business they are in.

Anyway, it's all a moot point now since the fully supported SL Server only costs $20. It was a much bigger point of interest when it was $500 and cost-prohibitive enough to make non-Server SL virtual machines worth pursuing.

How do I run an earlier version of OS X (Leopard) on my Mac that runs on Yosemite?

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