Update to El Capitan now instead of Sierra

I had the same problem too and Apple's policy is really annoying espacially for the thousands of us who are running a small business. In real life every new system is buggy and if you need to run your business you should rely on a stable system one or two numbers before the latest system. Apple will use you for finding out the bugs in High Sierra.

If you don't have the time to search for trouble shooting procedures you can still Upgrade to El Capitan: Find an old Mac which isn't fit for Sierra and load El Capitan from the AppStore. Don't install, quit and copy the installation App (Folder Applications) to the Mac where you want to install El Capitan. Than install – it will function.

This is the Link to El Capitan in the AppStore: Verbindung zum Mac App Store wird hergestellt

Sierra has bugs that require annoying workarounds to work with the NAS in my office.

I'm asking my coworkers to NOT upgrade to Sierra until Apple fixes it.

But now I'm trying to reinstall OS X to set up an old workstation as a clean new one, and I'm stuck with the choice of staying with the older Yosemite that's installed, or going to buggy Sierra?

I can't begin to tell you how annoyed I am with Apple's whole App Store model. It has made IT administration in my small office a nightmare for me. If I could keep everyone on 10.5 I would in a second.

You can download El Capitan from this Apple Support page. Upgrade to OS X El Capitan - Apple Support

It may be the case that if your Mac is capable of installing Sierra the App Store will give you a message that El Capitan cannot be installed on your Mac. This is Apples clumsy way of saying they would prefer you to install Sierra.

If you have an older mac that won't do Sierra but will install El Capitan you can download it to that, and then copy the Install Mac OS X El Capitan.app from the Applications folder. Or failing that ask a friend, or an Apple Retail Store may be able to help you out.

Or should I just wait until Sierra is approved for use with my Adobe suite

Unfortunately, it will need to be Adobe offering updates to their software to make it compatible with the OS. It is the developer's responsibility to make their software compatible rather than Apple making its' OS compatible with thousands of different applications.

Note that you would need to use a Mac which cannot be upgraded to Sierra in order to download El Capitan. FWIW, the updates you found are all updates to the initial El Capitan version; they will not work without having the initial version installed.

I agree it's the developer's responsibility. And this is exactly why it would be better for Apple to offer current OS plus one back, so people can upgrade from older versions, say Mavericks for example, without breaking their Adobe workflows. For the reasons stated above, software developers will almost always be a version behind.

software developers will almost always be a version behind.

That may or may not be so (and really shouldn't be) - Apple offers developers their beta OS versions months before the public release, so the developers have time to test it with their app(s).

Unless you downloaded the OS X before and it is already in your app store>Purchases, El Capitan will not be available through the link above unless your Mac can not run the Sierra.

The list of Macs supported to run macOS Sierra are as follows:

• MacBook (Late 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
• Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer)
• iMac (Late 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)

This is Apples way of pushing you towards the newest release macOS Sierra