[Thorzdad]

My wife was trying to purchase tax software for her MBP (13” 2017) The software requires MacOS 10.15.7 (Catalina) at minimum. The MBP is a few updates behind, running 10.13.6 (High Sierra) OK, says I, I will just download the 10.15.7 combo installer from Apple and bring the MBP up to meet the minimum.

Nope.

The 10.15.7 update requires 10.15.0 to run. OK, I’ll download 10.15.0 and...

Nope.

The 10.15.0 installer is no longer available.

Looking through all the installers available from Apple’s Support area, it looks like no base OS installers are available (except, of course, for Sonoma.)

So, how the hell can I get this thing updated?

[Thorzdad]

Aaaaand, just like that, I found (what I hope is) the solution. I did a search for the 10.15.0 Catalina installer. The seach came up with a link to a year-old Reddit post asking for the same installer. The top answer had a link back to an Apple page for Catalina which had a download button for the damned 10.15.0 installer. It’s a slow-ass download, but at least it’s downloading.

Why can’t Apple just list old base installers with all the updates?

[reader50]

If it's H&R Block, it says "Catalina" as the minimum, but the app actually accepts High Sierra as the minimum.

Also, you can get Catalina from Apple via the DosDude Catalina patch installer. Your MBP may not need a patched install, but the patcher can download the full OS installer for you.

[Thorzdad]

Yeah, it’s Block. Oh, well. What’s done is done. Her MBP is on Catalina now. A couple of apps now no longer work for her now because they, too, were old. But, she can adapt.

I’m still cheesed-off that, to get an actual working installer for Catalina, I had to accidentally find a link to a subreddit, that had a link to a page, deeply buried at Apple’s site, that had a link to a Catalina installer that worked. The Apple page looked like it was probably the original download page for when Catalina was brand new. But, the download button still worked, and kicked-off the entire upgrade process.

And, to add insult to injury, when that installer was done, it had installed not 10.15.0, but 10.15.7. The same version I had originally downloaded from the software update page Apple itself sends you to, and tried to run.

[andi*pandi]

I need to update an old machine also, and it is this process that scares the heck out of me. Did itunes and photos just work?

[reader50]

I updated Monterey a couple days ago, and encountered instability afterwards. Multiple lockups over 24 hours, making me do forced reboots. But I updated OpenCore and my VPN software at the same time, so it's unclear who was to blame.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

I need to update an old machine also, and it is this process that scares the heck out of me. Did itunes and photos just work?

She didn’t have pics or music on the MBP. All that’s on her phone, where she lives. The MBP is mostly for doing budgets, making the xmas family letter, etc. I think this was the OS update that split-up iTunes to the separate Music, Podcasts, etc. apps.

Her old version of Microsoft Office no longer works now, though, so she’s having to adapt to using Numbers for the budgets. So far, so good.

[reader50]

LibreOffice is free, opens MS files, and should feel familiar. It can even import AppleWorks files.

[Thorzdad]

She’s going fine with Apple’s stuff. Dorking around with open-source apps is not something she is up for. Apple’s Numbers opens her Excel files without a hitch, so she’s good.

[ghporter]

LibreOffice is a really finished product. It looks and feels much like either MS Office or the Apple equivalents, and it has plenty of actually well-written help. It takes a few minutes to get used to it, then you’re off. So if you wind up with a Mac that Apple and MS don’t support for office-type apps, Libre will do the jobs you need done. And it’s so freaking cross-platform that it probably will work on a Commodore 64 if you hold your tongue right when you install it.

[andi*pandi]

Thanks, my dad has been looking for an app that is more than notes and less than pages.

[subego]

TextEdit?

[andi*pandi]

for some reason the last time he tried printing from text edit, it was completely blank. Other things printed. PDFs. It sounded weird.