How to upgrade from Leopard to Mountain Lion?

Hello all. I am running "Leopard" on my mac that I have been running since 2009. I have never updated my software and I now realize that is a mistake. I want the newest OSX which happens to be Mountain Lion. I've read that if I get the disk I need either Snow Leopard or Lion to upgrade and I can't download it from the Mac store because I need Lion or higher. So what the heck do I do? Do I really have to purchase a new macbook or what? Thanks in advance for the help.

Sub-Zer0 said:

Hello all. I am running "Leopard" on my mac that I have been running since 2009. I have never updated my software and I now realize that is a mistake. I want the newest OSX which happens to be Mountain Lion.

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One thing that should be mentioned. Since you're currently running OS 10.5.x...and you want to upgrade to OS 10.8...that's 3 versions newer. Do you have any expensive software installed that may be made incompatible with this OS upgrade?

Because if you do...there's a VERY good chance that when you upgrade to OS 10.8...much of that software will not run.

- Nick

I actually do have some decently expensive programs installed. :/

The key problem here is that I don't want to use another browser outside of chrome and chrome yells at me that my flash is outdated EVERY page and I can't update it because OSX 10.5 is too old. There's no way to disable it or get the old version to run without that dreadful, God-awful, annoying yellow pop-up popping up. I just figured I may as well update my software on the way but if my programs will become obsolete then I really don't know. What's my move here?

Sub-Zer0 said:

I actually do have some decently expensive programs installed. :/

The key problem here is that I don't want to use another browser outside of chrome and chrome yells at me that my flash is outdated EVERY page and I can't update it because OSX 10.5 is too old. There's no way to disable it or get the old version to run without that dreadful, God-awful, annoying yellow pop-up popping up. I just figured I may as well update my software on the way but if my programs will become obsolete then I really don't know. What's my move here?

Click to expand...

Well...this is sort of a "You can't have your cake & eat it too" situation!

On one hand it sounds like you would like to update your OS so that Chrome stops yelling at you...but on the other hand...you don't want to lose compatibility with some expensive software you have installed.

I can see two solutions:

- Bite the bullet...and use a different browser...then you hopefully won't need an OS upgrade...and you retain compatibility with all your apps.
- Make a dual-boot setup (hard drive setup with two partitions). One partition with OS 10.8 on it...so that your browser situation is "happy". And the 2nd partition exactly as your HD is setup right now. With OS 10.5 & your expensive apps.

HTH,

- Nick