Possibly stupid Apple question....

neilmistry

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Why would you want to do that? Lion is great.

A new iMac will come preinstalled with Lion, or possibly Mountain Lion if you purchase in July, but I think Snow Leopard was sold as a DVD (as opposed to an App store purchase that Lion was), so if you can get hold of a copy and then overwrite whatever is on there, it should work.
 

chebby

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neilmistry said:
Why would you want to do that? Lion is great.

A new iMac will come preinstalled with Lion, or possibly Mountain Lion if you purchase in July, but I think Snow Leopard was sold as a DVD (as opposed to an App store purchase that Lion was), so if you can get hold of a copy and then overwrite whatever is on there, it should work.

I have the Snow Leopard install disk already. (I run Snow Leopard on my current iMac.)

However, I would want to restore our current system - complete - onto a new iMac and know in advance that there was nothing 'hard coded' (or hardware based) that is only 'Lion onwards' compatible.

I am sure "Lion Is Great" but that's not the issue. I want to upgrade to Lion when I am ready and not before.

Thanks.
 

scene

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professorhat said:
I think that would work - Apple still sell Snow Leopard (link) so you could ask them (just phone up a store I would think if you can't get to one easily).

Don't forget that Mountain Lion is due out next month.

And if you buy an Mac (Book, iMac) now, you can apply for a free upgrade to Mountain Lion see here, which is what I'm planning to do when my iMac arrives next week...
 

chebby

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professorhat said:
I think that would work - Apple still sell Snow Leopard (link) so you could ask them (just phone up a store I would think if you can't get to one easily).

Don't forget that Mountain Lion is due out next month.

Thanks. The plan is not to use my Snow Leopard install disk but to boot up a new iMac from our (Super Duper!) bootable backup drive and 'restore' the whole thing onto the new iMac overwriting whatever is there.

(I have successfully done this before - after our iMac had it's HD replaced - but that was restoring back onto the same machine and not a new one.)

I know I will probably have to purchase Lion/Mountain Lion again at some time in the future (having 'blatted' all over the original) but that's ok. I am more concerned that the new iMac will - without any exception - run our exisiting system exactly as it is now without any hardware issues jumping out to bite me. (Like a keyboard won't work with Snow Leopard or some bit of proprietary firmware will only recognise Lion or subsequent OS's.)
 

professorhat

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In which case, you could take your SuperDuper backup disk into a Mac store and ask if you can boot from this on a new iMac. If the new iMac can run Snow Leopard from your external hard disk, then I can't see why it wouldn't then be able to run it from the internal disk.

Again, probably best to call your local store previously to arrange this so someone is aware before you go in (i.e. by booking a Genius probably). This will ensure you don't have to wait around for someone when you get there.

EDIT - if you did do this, you'd probably want to redo a full backup of your original Mac when done, in case the different hardware makes any changes to your backup.
 

chebby

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professorhat said:
EDIT - if you did do this, you'd probably want to redo a full backup of your original Mac when done, in case the different hardware makes any changes to your backup.

:) I've just bought an external drive a couple of days ago to have a second backup of the old iMac (just in case).

That will get re-cycled for other purposes once the migration is successful and no issues have emerged.
 

WishTree

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I have read some where (or did I try it ?) that a Lion machine can not be downgraded to the previous version of OSX. I am almost very sure about this but a call to Apple will get the right asnwer!

BTW, You might be bang on about new iMacs not having an Optical Drive.

Though personally I would trade the no Optical trade to a no glare screen any day. I love the iMac but can not use it during the day time AT ALL in my environment.
 

Trefor Patten

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I have decided to get a new iMac now as there is a distinct possibility that future versions will lack DVD/CD. (Based on what's happened with new Macbooks.)

But remember that even if that is the case (and it may not be as there is not the constraint on making the iMac thinner and lighter), you can still rip your CDs elsewhere (even on a PC) and transfer the files via a wired/wireless connection. You can plug in a Superdrive (and burn DVD-As of your high-res downloads) or plug in a blu-ray drive, play blu-rays on your iMac and use 50Gb discs for backups. As that damn meerkat would say 'simples'. 8)
 

scene

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It's not a stupid question. Some new Macs don't support Snow Leopard, I think new iMacs do. There is a very good post for it on the Apple discussion pages. Not sure if I can post a link to this, but if you look for a post with the title "Macs and Software that will run with Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.x)" you should find it.
 

professorhat

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But then it is annoying to have an external drive knocking about - much nicer to have it built in if you can. I don't mind too much with my Mac Mini as using a CD / DVD is a rare activity for me (essentially only when I buy a stack of new CDs that need ripping). But for those that use one more regularly, the external drive isn't as neat and gets in the way.

The only thing I'd say is, removing the CD / DVD drive from the Mac line up is more of a design choice I think - especially on laptops / notebooks / Mac Mini etc. where it means you can reduce the size of the device and make it more slimline. This is less likely to be an issue for the iMac (but then with Apple, who knows? They may decide to make an ultra slim iMac like a modern TV, in which case, it could well be removed).
 

professorhat

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scene said:
It's not a stupid question. Some new Macs don't support Snow Leopard, I think new iMacs do. There is a very good post for it on the Apple discussion pages. Not sure if I can post a link to this, but if you look for a post with the title "Macs and Software that will run with Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.x)" you should find it.

Post away - new forum rules allow you to post to other forums now (as long as it's not promoting anything porongraphic or illegal, which I'm sure it's not given the subject matter!).
 

scene

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professorhat said:
scene said:
It's not a stupid question. Some new Macs don't support Snow Leopard, I think new iMacs do. There is a very good post for it on the Apple discussion pages. Not sure if I can post a link to this, but if you look for a post with the title "Macs and Software that will run with Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.x)" you should find it.

Post away - new forum rules allow you to post to other forums now (as long as it's not promoting anything porongraphic or illegal, which I'm sure it's not given the subject matter!).

Thanks prof, in which case, a fairly definitive guide to Snow Leopard compatibility appears here
 

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