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akbar719 · Mar 10, 2010, 04:35 AM

Hi All,

I am new to this forum...I have owned Macs for about 5-6 years now mostly for post production work. I purchased an iMac for my dad so he can do some photoshop work. Apparently, there is a 3rd party software that he uses which has minor bugs for snow-leopard. The software works fine on my mac which is running Leopard....

I tried downgrading from Snow Leopard to Leopard on my iMac, but when I install the Leopard disc (5 user licenses), I get the option to restart; however after that it just hangs...doesn't do anything...All I see is the grey screen...

Any inputs please..Thanks

Spheric Harlot · Mar 10, 2010, 04:43 AM

Absolutely no way.

Leopard was replaced on August 29th last year. Any machine released after that will not be supported, as Leopard never had support for the new hardware coded in. This is especially dramatic for completely new hardware like the i5 or i7.

akbar719 · Mar 10, 2010, 11:11 AM

That sucks!!

....Generally Apple never disappoints me, but a little disappointed over this one....but oh well, I guess I'll have to live it....still beats any OS named after house fixtures...

Chito · Mar 10, 2010, 01:25 PM

You shouldn't be disappointed in Apple. Instead be disappointed in the third party software vendor. Snow Leopard has been out for over 6 months now and they haven't updated their product? Have you checked with them to be sure there isn't an update?

ibook_steve · Mar 10, 2010, 03:54 PM

Yes, what is the software? This is not Apple's fault; it's the vendor who has not updated.

Steve

P · Mar 10, 2010, 05:08 PM

This is a paradigm thing. If you buy the OS as a separate product, like we actually do these days, it's not too much to ask that a new Mac can run an OS that is a few months "past due". If you get the whole OS+computer as a package, like most UNIX vendors do, it's more OK that you use the version you got. Apple used to deliver the whole deal, then they started selling the OS for additional revenue (7.1 was the first), but the idea that they don't backport support to older versions stuck. If it helps, this was a problem 20 years ago as well, when new Macs required System 7.

If you MUST run Leopard on a new Mac, there is one legal, non-hacky way to do so: Install Snow Leopard and a virtualization app (VMware/Parallells), and run Leopard Server on the virtual box (Leopard client cannot be virtualized according to the license).

akbar719 · Mar 10, 2010, 05:26 PM

It's not a matter of what the 3rd party software is capable of doing...I just think I should have the capability of running Leopard on my new iMac instead of Snow Leopard....Its not comparing apples to oranges here...Perhaps I would be comparing apples to oranges if I wanted to run something like Panther or Jaguar on my new iMac

None the less, I didn't know parallels could run OSX...I thought it was only limited to running a windows operating system...I'll give that a shot since I do have a copy of parallels.

Big Mac · Mar 10, 2010, 06:00 PM

You're new to how Apple does things then. It has almost always been the case that newer Apple hardware won't run on an older Apple OS than the one that shipped with the system.

Art Vandelay · Mar 10, 2010, 06:37 PM

To take it a step further, the iMacs that came out in the Spring of 2009 required 10.5.6. You couldn't boot them with a retail Leopard 10.5 DVD. Versions of the OS previous to what a Mac ships with simply do not contain the necessary drivers to boot the hardware in that Mac.

Spheric Harlot · Mar 11, 2010, 03:26 AM

Originally Posted by akbar719

It's not a matter of what the 3rd party software is capable of doing...I just think I should have the capability of running Leopard on my new iMac instead of Snow Leopard....Its not comparing apples to oranges here...Perhaps I would be comparing apples to oranges if I wanted to run something like Panther or Jaguar on my new iMac.

why would that be any different? Just because the names are less similar?

l008com · Mar 11, 2010, 04:38 AM

You could have bought an older iMac on ebay. Something that shipped with 10.5 or older. Also, you might be able to install 10.5 Server directly on your newer mac. I've seen that before, and it make sense since there is no 'included' 10.5 Server disc with your computer, 10.5 server would have to have some special universal drivers that let it boot newer Macs. Still, that's an expensive solution.

Simon · 05:14 AM

Originally Posted by akbar719

It's not a matter of what the 3rd party software is capable of doing...I just think I should have the capability of running Leopard on my new iMac instead of Snow Leopard....Its not comparing apples to oranges here...Perhaps I would be comparing apples to oranges if I wanted to run something like Panther or Jaguar on my new iMac.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

why would that be any different? Just because the names are less similar?

Hmm, maybe because of the 4+ year difference in age?
Jaguar: Aug 2002
Panther: Oct 2003
vs.
Leopard: Oct 2007

akarb, the iMac you got was released in Oct 2009 and it came with SL. SL was launched in Aug 2009. That's only two months difference, but per Apple's usual policy it's quite clear these iMacs will NOT run Leopard. If you absolutely need Leopard, you should have gotten a previous generation iMac. I suggest you look into getting an update for that software to get it to work properly with SL.