Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
Hi,
Is it possible to downgrade to an older OS (Yosemite) if I recently purchased a new Macbook Pro that came with El Capitan? My copy of Serato DJ is not working well on El Capitan, and was fine on Yosemite.
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)
With one exception the answer is “no” but you probably fall within the one exception. When a computer first ships with one version of the OS and then a new version of the OS is released Apple will begin shipping computers with the new version. That computer can install the older version even though it shipped with the newer. That is the sole exception. In some cases a newer computer cannot install an older OS - an indication that model never shipped with that OS - but it can boot that OS. I know of some instances where people have taken advantage of this fact to run an older OS on a newer computer but I’d very hesitant to depend on that computer’s stability.
Thanks, I had a look at that before this, but was wondering if it was applicable to my case as it seems to be meant for people who have upgraded to El Capitan on their own. Since my Macbook Pro came stock with El Capitan, I'm wondering if this would work as I did set it up with a time machine backup from my old machine running Yosemite.
I did make a few changes to files, bought a bit of new music over the past week and was wondering if it was better to copy these new files manually onto a separate external HD as my time machine backups, then back up my new Macbook from that last Time Machine backup (Yosemite) from my old machine and then copy the new files over manually. Is this the best way to get around this?
Also, I'm concerned about stability issues that might arise after doing this?
Sorry if I'm being confusing!
Without question make a backup first. I use this enclosure (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MSTG800U3K/), I swap my choice of quality bare drives (currently have a set of WD Black 750 GB). I swap these drives through the enclosure as required for clones, data/video, tests for new OEXes. You can add "TimeMachine" to the list of uses for an enclosure.
Would my computer be very unstable if I do this OS X El Capitan: Revert to a previous OS X version ? I was wondering if it was applicable to my case as it seems to be meant for people who have upgraded to El Capitan on their own. Since my Macbook Pro came stock with El Capitan, I'm wondering if this would work as I did set it up with a time machine backup from my old machine running Yosemite.
Macs are different animals from Windows. You can run most any Windows <n> on any hardware (barring XP, 2000, etc).
Macs come with a version of OS pre-defined. My 2011 MBP came with 10.6.7. People upgrading from 10.5.x to 10.6.x can use a SL disk that installs 10.6.3 (10.6.3 is higher than 10.5.x), but my MBP cannot boot anything older than 10.6.7 so the 10.6.3 disk is useless.
A system that was pre-set to run 10.11.1 or 10.11.2 cannot natively run anything less than 10.11.<x>.
As dwb suggests, you could get lucky. A "new" system may be hardware-programmed to Yosemite originally but Apple put ElCapitan on it because EC had just come out. Then you could downgrade to Yosemite possibly.
<EDIT EDIT EDIT> BEFORE YOU TRY IT ... MAKE A BACKUP OF THE ELCAPITAN, I LIKE A CLONE, IN CASE THE YOSEMITE INSTALL FAILS!!!
Compare the release date of the Mac vs. the release dates on the OS X versions. You can safely go back without risk to any version that came out after the Mac model came out. Else you run the risk that the old OS X doesn't know what to do with the new hardware features and becomes unstable.
Short and to the point. Nice work.
Can I downgrade to an older OS on a new machine?
