Upgrading my old Mac to a new OS - likely problems?

I'm running Snow Leopard 10.68. on an iMac 5,1. I have Time Machine on a separate hard drive so I'm fully backed up. I've read all the pages on the Apple site and I'm planning to upgrade to OS Mavericks beause my machine is too old to go to El Capitan.

I'm only very basically tech-competent so I'm not sure if there will be any pitfalls that I could plan to avoid or fix. Can anyone tell me about any common issues and workarounds to avoid them or fix them? Thanks!

Hi Helen

Welcome to the Forums. Good to have you with us.

The first point to make is that Mavericks is not available to you. (unless you previously owned it, which cannot be so in your case). From Snow Leopard, 10.6.8, you can, for $20, purchase Lion or Mountain Lion, the latter being the better option for sure.

Otherwise, it's El Capitan which is a jump of 5 operating systems and, as your research has shown, doesn't seem possible on your machine.

So, I'm afraid your options are rather limited.

As regards the "technicalities", Mountain Lion comes by post from Apple as a CD. Pop in the CD and it does most of the work. Compatibility with your apps might be a problem.

I think if we knew a tad more about your iMac (year, how much RAM, how much storage on the HDD, and how much free space you have left on the HDD), this would help along with what your main uses of the iMac are.

Ian

A quick check re your iMac 5,1 shows it as a late 2006 model. Unfortunately this can only be upgraded to a maximum of 10.7.5 Lion, not Mavericks.

Additionally, if you are using any PPC applications via Rosetta, for instance MS Office 2004 or Appleworks, they won't function once you upgrade from Snow Leopard.

Oops. Thanks, Steve. I thought she could get ML. I should have checked!

Ian

With a machine that old Helen I suggest you leave it where it is as Lion was not that great of an operating system. Ten years old it is really time to start saving for a much later model.

As Steve pointed out, Lion is as high as she can go on that machine. And... Lion is download only or it can be ordered on a USB flash drive. There are no disk orders after Snow Leopard for any version of Mac OS X.

WAAAAY past time for a newer machine. Doesn't have to be brand new or expensive, but for a wide variety of reasons it is more than time to move on hardware-wise. In the meantime, however, you can do some important prep work on that machine: first, upgrade all your Apple apps and third-party software as far as you can, abandon or find replacements for any PowerPC software, and third you need to check that your files are not in obsolete formats (such as AppleWorks).

Make all word processing documents into Word format or .txt (or .rtf), any vector drawing files should be converted to EPS, any spreadsheets made in other programs to Excel format, any databases should be converted to FileMaker or comma-delimited, et cetera.

Disable Java if you have it on, and I'd disable Flash as well. Running such an out of date system, you have far fewer "protective" options available to you to prevent any malware from getting in. If I were you, I would limit my Internet use on that machine to email and trusted sites ONLY.

Thanks Ian! Time for a new Mac, I think. I've put it off for a while having heard so much negative stuff about new OS but now I think I have to bite the bullet.

Thanks Steve! Thught I would be able to get Mavericks after reading the site but on re-reading I see I can't. Definitely time to upgrade the machine.

Thanks Harry. I think the time has come.

Thanks chscag. New Mac shopping time.

Thanks Chas! And thanks everyone. I really appreciate all the input you guys have given me, it's made me realise that ten years is too long to keep things running with the pace of change in tech nowadays. (Although my OH is still using my third computer, a PC that Gateway built for me in 1998... Luddite tendencies...)

I'm only running the software that came with my Mac, Firefox, Skype, Pinterest, Twitter, FB and Office 2004. I have a couple of little design apps but that's about it. I tend to be very cautious about downloads and uploads anyway but I'll follow your advice before I hit the sales and set up the new kit.

The latest operating system El Capitan is fast and rock steady, improvement on Yosemite. And unless you have Mavericks already, El Capitan is the only OS you can access at the App Store. Ignore 99% of what you read on the 'net about El Capitan, and be dubious about the other 1%. Ask others here about El Capitan as most are using it.

I second EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING that Harry said above!

Arghh drat chas! I must be going real bad!!

Clearly you've been turned to the Dark Side of the Force ... bwahahaha ... and speaking of that, heading over to Schweb's with a link that will set cat amongst pigeons ...

Already read it and I loved the last two words in the footnote. the smartarse and motormouth description.

Fine critique mate!

Thank you very much!