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OS Upgrades on Older Mac Computers?

2K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  dufferdan 
#1 ·
I have a mid-2010 MB Pro (running Mavericks 10.9.x) and a late 2012 Mac Mini running Yosemite 10.10.5. Both serve me fine for what I'm doing.

I try to leave well-enough alone until I need to upgrade. Chrome on my MB Pro will not update any more due to OS and Crave (on Chrome) requests an update on my Mac Mini due to the OS as well.

The newest I can go on the MB Pro is High Sierra 10.13.x, so I was thinking of upgrading both computers to High Sierra.

I've checked the various compatibility tables online for various software that I'm running and it looks fine. (I would run into issues if I wanted to upgrade to Catalina on my Mini, which I don't want to do - I'll leave that until I get a new Mac Mini, which will require additional work/upgrades on my part)

Anyone have any comments/warnings before I go ahead? I'll back-up both before doing the upgrades.

Will these computers get faster due to new OS or slower due to more "bloat"?

I realize these are both getting very long in the tooth and I will likely replace them soon, just not yet.
 
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#2 ·
I upgraded my late 2010 Macbook air to High Sierra 10.13.6 and it actually got faster, had no problems. I have heard that some apps will stop working on it though, so I would check into that if I were you, especially since you are coming from mavericks. I am a Linux Mint lover though, so I eventually backed up the macbook and wiped the hard drive and am now using Linux mint 19.2 on it.
 
#4 ·
I went through all the updates on my laptop, without any issues.

The only things that broke for me are enterprise applications, such as the VPN software I use and network-based macOS deployment. The first one was fixed since, the other will never be fixed; Apple stopped supporting the feature about a year after they broke it.

Everyone's situation will be different. I began at macOS Sierra on my laptop and I have a flash drive.
 
#5 ·
Updates for other Mac apps such as IMovie, Numbers, Pages, and Keynote have stopped for High Sierra OS. I run two Mac's myself, 2011 IMac and 2010 MacBook Air. Web browsers that I use all continue to be updated (Safari, Firefox, Opera). No issues with any other apps so far.
 
#6 ·
I ran the update on the MacBook Pro today and all seems well. I tested all the apps that I use regularly and everything seems to work. Chrome now updates properly and also functions better (some websites had issues in the earlier version). As for speed, I'm not sure if it's any better or worse, but it's not a significant change in either direction that I can detect.

I was surprised by how long it took. The update of the OS took about 3 hours and then the updates of some of the Mac apps took another hour or two (wasn't watching that as carefully)

I might do the Mac Mini tomorrow. Fingers crossed for Quicken Essentials and the printer driver for my old HP printer. Also WeatherLink for my Davis weather station. I don't use/have any of those on the MBP.
 
#7 ·
I ran the update on my Mac Mini overnight and it went OK (mostly).

Quicken Essentials is not compatible with High Sierra. I will need to upgrade to Quicken Deluxe or similar costing me a few $ ($60). My Essentials is 7 years old, so that's not a bad run I guess. Edit - Upgraded to Quicken Deluxe and all appears to have gone well.

WeatherLink is giving me some Javascript related problems. I have encountered these before, but was able to get it working a few years back. I'm hoping to figure that out shortly.

My HP printer works fine.
 
#8 ·
WeatherLink is giving me some Java related problems.
Although my issue with WeatherLink the last time I did an OS upgrade was Java-related (and the error messages mentioned Java), after a significant amount of time spent trying that approach, I found out that the Tripp-Lite Keyspan adaptor that's between my computer and Weather Station required an update to the driver. All is now working.

I'm not noticing any significant difference in the speed of my computer, if anything some software is slightly slower, but nothing especially noticeable.

The upgrades did fix the issues I was having with Chrome not updating due to old OS on my MBPro and Crave not working properly due to old OS on my Mini.
 
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