Need help with Flash

hi all,

I've been playing an online game (Goodgame Empire) for over a year now and have invested both money and a lot of time into this game.

After a recent upgrade to the game I get a message saying I need Flash 12 to play it now, on the games forum I've discovered the minimum requirement is 11.2, not entirely sure which is correct.

My problem is that the mac laptop I'm playing on is a dinosaur lol. Its running os x 10.5.8 intel, and doesnt seem to be upgradeable. Flash 10.3 seems to be the highest version I can run

I was wondering if I should try and install Flash 11.2 anyway, I know it isnt supported but I've heard sometimes unsupported versions still work. Can anyone help with this?

The only other thing I can think of is are there any standalone browsers that would have flash built in?

any help or work arounds to this problem would be greatly appreciated

Linda

What Mac model do you have and what are the basic specs? Have you tried downloading and installing 11.2 or higher? If so what happens? I am running a late 2006 C2d iMac here with 10.6 Snow Leopard and have flash 12 installed, I will check on Adobes site and see what is said About*10.5.8.

Just checked and you are right, 10.6-10.9 required.

Google Chrome has Flash built in. Will check on the system requirements for that.

Again please post your Macs Specifications. 10.6 should run on it and solve your issue. 10.6 is only $29 from apple.

Chrome wants 10.6 also.

hi dennis

its a macbook 4.1

intel core 2 duo 2.1ghz


from memory i dont think i can update os x to 10.6

Linda

Every Intel Mac ever made can be "upgraded" to OS X 10.6.
Those that shipped with 10.7 or later, cannot be "downgraded".

In Australia, you can get it from here.

As always, you should have a current backup prior to upgrading the OS.

wow bob thankyou so much!!

I looked into upgrading the OS over a year ago, the info then was that it was based on the year of the puter not on the processor etc.

but have just looked at that link and it seems i can even go to 10.7 (with more ram and IF i can find it, doesnt seem available). But will start with snow leopard (10.6) and see how it goes.

any recommendations on how best to backup? I have a timemachine backup to an external HD, is their a better method? (treat me like a newbie lol)

thanks again
Linda

Open Time Machine and have it do one more backup.
Then head into Time Machine Preferences and turn it off before you start the upgrade to 10.6.

(Many of us here, incl'g myself, keep both a TM backup and a bootable clone backup using either SuperDuper! or CarbonCopyCloner. Creating a bootable backup would allow you to create a copy of your 10.5 install that you could boot up into in case you have some older software that was never updated for 10.6 - don't really think there were that many.)

The upgrade is easy and once you insert the 10.6 disc, it will walk you through the upgrade easily enough.

After you're up in 10.6, I suggest running it for a couple of days or so prior to turning TM back on.
The reason for this - a few of us did experience some issues with the upgrade install to 10.6 that were solved by doing a clean install (re-partitioning/formatting the drive which deletes everything on it and then installing 10.6) and then restore from the backup. A great many more had no issues.

One other question - how much used space and free space on your drive? Open Disk Utility (in Applications / Utilities) and highlight your MacIntosh HD to find this info.

7.4 free

104 used

not really sure why, i've deleted most songs/vids/pics off the HD

Not good - would have to guess your machine is running like molasses already.
Doubtful you have enough free space to install 10.6.

I would really encourage you to upgrade the internal drive to at least a 500 GB.
U.S. prices can be had for maybe $50-$60 - not sure about yours there.

I would probably upgrade the drive - do a clean install of 10.6 onto the new drive. During the end of the install, it will ask if you want to restore data from another machine, at which time you can restore from your Time Machine backup

i could do the same with the current HD couldnt I?

clean install then restore from timemachine backup on external HD?

You could do the same - but if you're running at less than 10% free space - I have to recommend you get a new larger (and it would be faster) drive.

While I am admittedly on the extreme end of the free space vs. used space that should be maintained on a hard drive, personally, I wouldn't even attempt a "restore" if I was working on a friend's computer unless the most current TM backup had been made with a minimum of 30-35% free space on the internal drive. With any less free space than that, I'd have to recommend selectively moving files you want from the backup rather than a full restore.

With a 120 GB drive and only 7 GB free, you are at risk of the drive filling up and being stuck at a point where it won't even start up for you any longer.

You can also run Onyx and clear out your cache files to see how much space you can recover from that. It's surprising how much junk accumulates in the cache and log files.

EDIT: before anyone jumps down my throat about how a new install will leave the cache and log files empty anyway, the idea is to do it NOW, before starting the process, to see how much room that frees up. If she can get the free space to a reasonable number that way, she may not be forced to get a new HD. (Although getting a larger HD is ALWAYS a good idea!)