Macintosh OS High Sierra

Randy B. Singer · Sep 13, 2017

harryb2448 said:
Randy, reading SuperDuper blog this week, they believe sometime during the life of macOS High Sierra, 32bit will be killed off somewhere around, or after, OS X 13.3/4.

I haven't heard anything like that. And...it also makes little to no sense. Making a major change like that in the middle of the run of the life of a major version of the MacOS, with no warning to users, is to invite outrage from millions of users, and some very nasty lawsuits.

I'll wait to hear something like this from Apple before I take it seriously.

pm-r · Sep 13, 2017

I haven't heard anything like that. And...it also makes little to no sense.

I believe I recall reading that Apple will no longer accept any 32-Bit new or updated apps after around early 2018, which seems to be amounting to "killing it off" to me, or at least as far as Apple is concerned.

- Patrick
======

chscag · Sep 13, 2017

pm-r said:
I believe I recall reading that Apple will no longer accept any 32-Bit new or updated apps after around early 2018, which seems to be amounting to "killing it off" to me, or at least as far as Apple is concerned. Patrick ======

I've read the same thing but that does not amount to your 32 bit apps will not work after 2018. Like Randy said and like Macworld and MacLife magazines have reported, the next version of macOS (whatever it's named) will not support 32 bit apps.

We have seen Apple do the same thing with iOS. As soon as you upgrade to iOS 11, all 32 bit iOS apps will be removed from your iOS device and can no longer be added. I'm not sure how many of those I have but I know of at least one: the Mac-Forums app.

Randy B. Singer · Sep 13, 2017

chscag said:
I've read the same thing but that does not amount to your 32 bit apps will not work after 2018. Like Randy said and like Macworld and MacLife magazines have reported, the next version of macOS (whatever it's named) will not support 32 bit apps.

Exactly. At some point Apple will stop accepting new 32-bit apps for inclusion in the Mac App store. That isn't the same thing as 32-bit apps suddenly not working under High Sierra. 32-bit apps will always work under High Sierra.

Nighthawk4 · Sep 18, 2017

The fact that SuperDuper! - and indeed other 32-bit Apps - will still work if I were to upgrade to High Sierra is a great relief.

Whether either of my Macs would run High Sierra is a different question. Pretty sure my old iMac will not and I doubt that my MBP (mid-2012 iirc - the last one with the DVD drive) will do so, although they both run El Capitan. I think the MBP will run Sierra.

ferrarr · Sep 18, 2017

Nighthawk4 said:
The fact that SuperDuper! - and indeed other 32-bit Apps - will still work if I were to upgrade to High Sierra is a great relief.

Whether either of my Macs would run High Sierra is a different question. Pretty sure my old iMac will not and I doubt that my MBP (mid-2012 iirc - the last one with the DVD drive) will do so, although they both run El Capitan. I think the MBP will run Sierra.

Yes, your MBP will run Sierra (and High Sierra), but only if you download Sierra now, before High Sierra comes out on Tuesday.

pm-r · Sep 18, 2017

ferrarr said:
Yes, your MBP will run Sierra (and High Sierra), but only if you download Sierra now, before High Sierra comes out on Tuesday.

That's a good valid point Bob, especially if Apple is going to carry on with their current restricted upgrading method.

For those in doubt, lot's of pages out there such as this:
MacOS High Sierra Compatible Macs List
http://osxdaily.com/2017/06/06/macos-high-sierra-compatibility-list/

PS: A Sierra OS install doesn't appear to be a requirement for installing High Sierra. And no doubt, one can probably skip an OS version or two if needed to get the High Sierra version.

- Patrick
======

IWT · Sep 18, 2017

And for those of you who are contemplating the upgrade to macOS High Sierra - even more so for those with Fusion Drives who have been testing the beta version - have a read of this article, just posted:

http://tidbits.com/article/17471

Ian

chscag · Sep 18, 2017

Thanks for that Ian. And a very stern warning from the article and Apple stating that you should backup your Fusion Drive, reformat it to HFS+ and then restore from the backup. It looks like Apple may have discovered some glitches with APFS and Fusion drives.

link182ps2 · Sep 18, 2017

Impatient IT/IS guy

I read this and agree with most of your points and found it to be very informative. This is also my first post

Right after I read it though, I signed up for the beta and installed High Sierra. I'm currently writing this on my 2017 MBP 13 Kaby Lake i5 w/ touch bar. High Sierra is running flawlessly at the moment. I haven't noticed anything that needs to be fixed but I also haven't delved really deep into the OS. I checked my critical apps, Office apps, Time Machine, etc. and once I verified that they worked, I stopped worrying. I did have a Time Machine backup and a USB with Sierra on it just in case.

I bought my MBP about 2 weeks ago and got everything organized from my Windows PC and moved over. So I didn't really have files scattered all over the place and only have applications that I really need for work or downloaded to just play with. This is my first Mac so I decided I was going to go for the beta and if something went wrong, fix it or downgrade. I find it easier to learn when I'm hands on and something needs to be fixed. The problem is nothing will go wrong on this MacBook! This forum has been great for reading about issues that may occur though and I appreciate that.

Disclaimer: This isn't the workstation for my primary job. It is my secondary job primary workstation but I also keep a Windows laptop up to date and setup as a backup. So I never really risked a financial loss.

All that to say, I think many people will be fine with the initial release. If you can't have your computer down for a couple of hours then yes, wait. But for regular IT/IS guys like myself, enjoy it! New tech is so much fun!

Randy B. Singer said:
Apple's next major Macintosh operating system's release date has been announced by Apple as September 25th.

More than any past major OS upgrade, I strongly recommend that folks wait for the "point-two" release to upgrade. High Sierra offers an entirely new file system (optimized for SSD's), and with that there is, at least the potential for something to go catastrophically wrong.

Ironically, beta testers report that the betas of High Sierra showed fewer bugs than most past versions of the Mac OS. But don't let that sway you into being an early adopter. And when you do upgrade, I highly recommend doing a full backup of your data first, and possibly two.

Just about everything that comes with the OS has been upgraded in High Sierra. All the included apps, the graphics, video playback, support for VR, support for GPU's...everything. It will be a highly worthwhile upgrade when it has been proven to be entirely safe.

Note that High Sierra is rumored to be the last version of the Mac OS to support 32-bit programs. So, now would be the time to start taking stock of which programs that you have that are 32-bit and to start looking for updates/replacements. (Quicken 2007 is an obvious 32-bit app that many users still have that will need to be replaced.)

To find which applications you have are 32-bit and which are 64-bit:

Click the Apple menu.

Choose About This Mac...

Click the System Report... button.

Look down the left hand column to Software.

Under Software click Applications.

Wait a bit for the info to be gathered.

The entire right hand window pane will fill with a list of apps.

You can raise or lower the "window shade" to make the pane larger or
smaller by using to dot at bottom center of the pane. Below the
application list is another pane that will show specifics about the app
you click.

At far right in the pane is a column named 64-Bit (Intel). You may
have to expand the window to see this column.

More info:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...eview-a-quick-look-at-the-stuff-you-cant-see/

High Sierra compatibility list:
http://osxdaily.com/2017/06/06/macos-high-sierra-compatibility-list/

chscag · Sep 18, 2017

Welcome to our forums.

Enjoy your new TB MacBook Pro. You're in good company here.

Randy B. Singer · Sep 18, 2017

Updated information:

Apple's advice on preparing a Fusion drive for High Sierra:
https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/apfsfusion
"Preparing your Fusion Drive Mac for the macOS High Sierra install
Beta versions of macOS High Sierra made a change in the disk format of systems by converting them to use the new Apple File System. The initial release of macOS High Sierra will provide support for the new Apple File System as the default boot filesystem on Mac systems with all-Flash built-in storage. If you installed a beta version of macOS High Sierra, the Fusion Drive in your Mac may have been converted to Apple File System. Because this configuration is not supported in the initial release of macOS High Sierra, we recommend that you follow the steps below to revert back to the previous disk format."

Initial High Sierra Release Won’t Support APFS for Fusion Drives
http://tidbits.com/article/17471

Slydude · Sep 18, 2017

I've been running the various High Sierra betas on a fusion drive that was formatted to the new Apple File System. Overall it has worked fairly well but one or two of the bets caused some really weird behavior that seems to have been fixed in subsequent betas. When I went to download the Golden Master release a few days ago I got apple's warning about fusion drives being unsupported right now but I haven't taken time to complete the steps needed to revert the process.

For those thinking about running the High Sierra release understand that there are issues with High Sierra and fusion drives. At one point I was beginning to wonder whether my APFS formatted fusion drive was starting to fail. Apple's own Disk Utility would sometimes hang for an inordinate amount of time. In some cases it takes several attempts to boot with the option key down. For me, booting from a Sierra partition means I can't see the APFS drive though that hasn't't been true for everyone.

I may keep running the current beta until this problem is fixed because overall I like High Sierra. Bottom line: If you have a fusion drive wait until this problem is resolved before attempting an update. I'll discuss High Sierra in a bit more depth in an upcoming episode of the Sunday chat.

pine man · Sep 19, 2017

Randy and anybody else with a view

Slightly off subject but in your first post you gave instructions on how to find out which apps were 32 and which were 64 bit.

Using those instructions I found that my old Photoshop Elements app is 32 bit so, out of interest and looking to the future, I had a look for photo editing apps that were 64 bit and not too expensive. The one that stood out was GIMP, an open source program, mainly because it was free and it also because it was either 32 or 64 bit. Having installed it I was pretty impressed and it looks as though it will do everything that Photoshop used to, BUT, it does not appear in the list of apps which indicates 32 or 64 bit.

I cannot/don't know how to find out if it has been installed as 32 or 64 bit. Do you know of any other way of establishing this?

Anybody got any views on GIMP?

pm-r · Sep 19, 2017

I cannot/don't know how to find out if it has been installed as 32 or 64 bit. Do you know of any other way of establishing this?

I'm not sure and I don't use it and I don't know why it doesn't show in the normal listing but maybe because it's open source.

But unless you downloaded an old or specifically 32-Bit version, it will be the later 64-Bit capable version.

If you really want to know more. maybe try this old suggestion that also included PPC Macs:

So how do you tell if you have a 64 bit capable application?

The first place to look is the “Get Info” box of the application itself. If it has a checkbox that gives you the option to run it as a 32 bit application then it is 64 bit. But, is it 64 bit for Intel machines only or for both PowerPC and Intel?

The solution to the problem is found in Terminal using the file command.

Open up Terminal and cd into your application and find the actual compiled binary. This is located in /Contents/MacOS inside your application.

So, for example, if I wanted to check out iWeb I would type the following:

cd /Applications/iWeb.app/Contents/MacOS/

Typing ls once you are inside the app will show you the actual name of the binary.

Now, use the file command on that binary.

file iWeb

That returns the following:

iWeb: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
iWeb (for architecture ppc): Mach-O executable ppc
iWeb (for architecture i386): Mach-O executable i386

Here’s how to read the results:

(for architecture ppc) = 32 bit PowerPC executable
(for architecture ppc64) = 64 bit PowerPC executable
(for architecture i386) = 32 bit Intel executable
(for architecture x86_64) = 64 bin Intel executable

So, we can see that iWeb has one 32 bit executable for PowerPC machines and one 32 bit executable for Intel (i386) machines.

Or even here:
http://www.mac-forums.com/macos-operating-system/243444-tell-application-64bit.html

PS: Note that Rand's first post says:

Note that High Sierra is rumored to be the last version of the Mac OS to support 32-bit programs.

i.e.: they'll still run in High Sierra.

- Patrick
======

Randy B. Singer · Sep 19, 2017

pine man said:
Randy and anybody else with a view....

I cannot/don't know how to find out if it has been installed as 32 or 64 bit. Do you know of any other way of establishing this?

Anybody got any views on GIMP?

High Sierra (as I said) will run 32-bit apps just fine. I just brought up the 64-bit thing as a bit of a view forward.

I think that it's too early to worry about any app that is currently and actively being developed not being 64-bit when the OS after High Sierra comes out. That is likely to be over a year from now. A 64-bit update will likely be released for such an app between then and now. Since Gimp is actively and enthusiastically being developed, I would assume that a 64-bit version is on its way.

For now you should be casually looking for replacements for apps that you use that are 32-bit and which have been discontinued. If you find a good replacement, you might want to implement it sooner rather than later.

I can't tell you if Photoshop Elements will be upgraded to be 64-bit. It's actively being developed, but Adobe can be really bad about updating Mac apps.

If you want to look at a replacement for Photoshop Elements, here is another one to consider. Lots of folks have been raving about it, and it's free (for the non-"Pro" version):

PhotoScape X/Pro (free/$30)
http://x.photoscape.org/
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id929507092
There is one drawback to this program for some. It doesn’t support layers. However, not everyone needs that feature.

dudefromthebay · Sep 20, 2017

Randy B. Singer said:
Apple's next major Macintosh operating system's release date has been announced by Apple as September 25th.

More than any past major OS upgrade, I strongly recommend that folks wait for the "point-two" release to upgrade. High Sierra offers an entirely new file system (optimized for SSD's), and with that there is, at least the potential for something to go catastrophically wrong.

Ironically, beta testers report that the betas of High Sierra showed fewer bugs than most past versions of the Mac OS. But don't let that sway you into being an early adopter. And when you do upgrade, I highly recommend doing a full backup of your data first, and possibly two.

Just about everything that comes with the OS has been upgraded in High Sierra. All the included apps, the graphics, video playback, support for VR, support for GPU's...everything. It will be a highly worthwhile upgrade when it has been proven to be entirely safe.

Note that High Sierra is rumored to be the last version of the Mac OS to support 32-bit programs. So, now would be the time to start taking stock of which programs that you have that are 32-bit and to start looking for updates/replacements. (Quicken 2007 is an obvious 32-bit app that many users still have that will need to be replaced.)

To find which applications you have are 32-bit and which are 64-bit:

Click the Apple menu.

Choose About This Mac...

Click the System Report... button.

Look down the left hand column to Software.

Under Software click Applications.

Wait a bit for the info to be gathered.

The entire right hand window pane will fill with a list of apps.

You can raise or lower the "window shade" to make the pane larger or
smaller by using to dot at bottom center of the pane. Below the
application list is another pane that will show specifics about the app
you click.

At far right in the pane is a column named 64-Bit (Intel). You may
have to expand the window to see this column.

More info:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...eview-a-quick-look-at-the-stuff-you-cant-see/

High Sierra compatibility list:
http://osxdaily.com/2017/06/06/macos-high-sierra-compatibility-list/

I early Beta'd and had zero issue, now I'm still on the "beta" as I haven't bothered with the update, everything is working fine, especially word 2010.
If anything, my laptop has gotten much quieter?

pine man · Sep 20, 2017

Randy B. Singer & pm-r

Thank you both for your prompt and very helpful replies.

Having read the original post I thought I'd check out a few apps to see if they would be useful replacements if the successor to High Sierra won't play with the ones I have now. My Photoshop is very old and I doubt that Adobe will update that one and a few searches revealed GIMP at an excellent price! Further research into GIMP suggests that the installation automatically selects 32 or 64 bit according to the Mac OS being used BUT there doesn't seem to be a way of finding out what it decided. I will probably run it side by side with Photoshop for the next year or so and see what happens then.

Thanks once again guys.

harryb2448 · Sep 20, 2017

Go into Apple System Profiler (About this Mac) under the Apple icon top right, then System . Applications. Expand the window and on the extreme left you will see if an application is Intel 64bit or not.

pine man · Sep 20, 2017

Thanks for your interest harry2448. I have tried that and GIMP isn't listed. It seems likely that it is because GIMP is open source and not recognised as an app by Sierra.

Thanks once again.

Macintosh OS High Sierra

Randy B. Singer

pm-r

chscag

Well-known member

Randy B. Singer

Nighthawk4

ferrarr

pm-r

IWT

chscag

Well-known member

link182ps2

chscag

Well-known member

Randy B. Singer

Slydude

Well-known member

pine man

pm-r

Randy B. Singer

dudefromthebay

pine man

harryb2448

pine man

Shop Amazon