- MacOS El Capitan no longer supported by Apple. In keeping with Apple's release cycle, macOS 10.11 El Capitan is no longer receiving security updates as of August 2018. El Capitan was replaced by Sierra 10.12, High Sierra 10.13 and the current release, macOS 10.14 Mojave. As a result SCS Computing Facilities (SCSCF) is phasing out software.
- OS X El Capitan on Unsupported Macs macOS Extractor, OS X Patcher, and MacPostFactor are apps that guide you through patching and installing OS X El Capitan (10.11), Yosemite (10.10), Mavericks(10.9), or Mountain Lion (10.8) on your older Mac.
Incidentally El Capitan is the last OS so far that you can tweak to run on an old MacPro 1,1. If you are having trouble finding a Mac App Store copy of El Capitan, Google is your friend for finding torrents. Just make sure to include the words 'pirate' and 'MAS El Capitan torrent' in your search terms. El Capitan support for unsupported hardware is here! A little over a month ago I blogged about El Capitan support for macosxbootloader and today, after 80 hours of research and development, I released two versions of boot.efi for El Capitan. One with a black background and a white Apple logo, and another one with a grey background and Apple logo.
Question :
I read somewhere that it is possible to install the latest version of OSX 10.10 Yosemite on my Mac, even though the official installer refuses to install.
Can you give me any directions ?
Answer :
Update To El Capitan
Installing newer versions of OSX on slightly older Macs that do not meet the official system requirements can be done using MacPostFactor (MCPF).
MacPostFactor also supports installing OSX versions up to OSX 10.10 Yosemite on older Macs. And a new version that supports installing OSX 10.11 El_Capitan is in the works.
For more info (and downloads), go to the info page on MacRumors.com :
or see the (less readable) official page of the MacPostFactor team :
…in short :
!!! THIS IS FOR (RATHER) EXPERIENCED MAC-USERS ONLY, AND SHOULD NOT BE DONE ON YOUR ‘ONE AND ONLY’ MAC !!!
!! REMEMBER : DO FOLLOW THE COMPLETE INSTRUCTIONS THAT CAN BE FOUND HERE : MacPost Factor info page on MacRumors.com
…that should be it !
enjoy !
😉
While the yearly major macOS update system is free to install, it is still limited to Macs that Apple deems compatible, and every year a generation of Macs essentially becomes obsolete. This is despite the fact that Apple is eager to emphasize that macOS is a widely compatible operating system.
As it happens, there are still people with close to ten-year-old Apple desktop computers still in use on a daily basis, likely performing a range of lighter tasks.
Download CleanMyMac X from MacPaw’s website and clean up to 500MB of junk data from your computer while enjoying all the features of the software without major limitations.
Which Macs Don't Support High Sierra
For some reason Apple doesn't want to allow these Macs to run one of its latest operating systems, namely macOS 10.13 High Sierra. This leaves the following Macs on macOS 10.11 El Capitan:
- MacBook Pro – late-2009 or earlier models
- MacBook – late-2008 or earlier models
- MacBook Air – 2009 or earlier models
- iMac – late-2008 or earlier models
- Mac Mini – 2009 or earlier models
- Mac Pro – 2009 or earlier models.
These machines are considered obsolete and vintage by Apple. The company defines vintage products as those that have not been manufactured for more than five years but less than seven years ago. Obsolete products are those discontinued more than seven years ago.
How To Install macOS High Sierra on Unsupported Macs
Though Apple doesn't support the above hardware officially, someone has thought about sharing the love for these older machines. A developer known as DOSDude1 has written a patch that works on Macs with the Penryn architecture. Using this still imposes certain limitations, but at least makes it possible to install macOS High Sierra on the following Macs:
- Early-2008 or newer Mac Pro, iMac, or MacBook Pro (MacPro 3,1 and 4,1, iMac 8,1 and 9,1, MacBook Pro 4,1, 5,1, 5,2, 5,3, 5,4, and 5,5).
- Late-2008 or newer MacBook Air or Aluminum Unibody MacBook (MacBook Air 2,1, MacBook 5,1).
- Early-2009 or newer Mac Mini or white MacBook (Mac Mini 3,1, MacBook 5,2)
- Early-2008 or newer Xserve (Xserve 2,1, Xserve 3,1).
If you happen to own any of the Penryn Macs mentioned above, the macOS High Sierra Patch Tool written by DOSDude1 will make running the latest software possible. But remember, with High Sierra you will also migrate to the Apple File System, and it is highly recommended that you first disable SIP because it may prevent the patch from working at all.
Installing the operating system on any of these Macs will require some technical knowledge, so it is not recommended for novice users. Also, a backup of your data is always a good idea in case anything goes wrong.
While there is a full step-by-step tutorial and video tutorial available on DOSDude1's website, it’s good to get a summary of the basics, which start with downloading the macOS High Sierra Installer app from the Mac App Store:
- Format a USB drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) via Disk Utility.
- Open the macOS High Sierra Patcher tool, navigate to the High Sierra Installer App, then select your pen drive and click “Start Operation”.
- Boot from the USB drive by holding down the option key after reboot.
- Install macOS normally, reboot back on the installer drive, and then open the “macOS Post Install” application.
- From the options, select the Mac model you own. This step is important, because it contains the optimal patch for that specific model.
- Click the “Patch” button, and after the process has finished, click “Reboot”.
The Reason Not To Install macOS High Sierra on an Unsupported Mac
Install Mac Os El Capitan On Unsupported Mac
As you may have already experienced with other types of officially unsupported machines, the probability of having issues is much higher. The same applies in this case, too, since the macOS High Sierra Patcher will render your iMac 8.1 Broadcom Wi-Fi chip useless for certain models.
Macs that use the Broadcom BCM4321 Wi-Fi module will not have functional Wi-Fi when running High Sierra. Another issue that has been highlighted by the developer is that the trackpad in the MacBook 5,2 isn't fully supported in this version of OS.
These are just a few of the possible issues that could arise, and this is before even mentioning the various potential software errors that you can run into by using out-of-date hardware. Without getting the proper knowledge beforehand, you'll need to revert back to the previous state of the Mac, which won't be an easy process, especially not without a Time Machine backup.
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