Upgrade macOS El Capitan on 2017 MacBook Air to which OS?

[krs]

Family member is using a 2017 MacBook Air with a 2.2 GHz i7 processor running El Capitan.
Turns out that more and more websites and applications no longer support that OS so we decided to upgrade.
There are no 32-bit applications used, so that is good.

The user of this Mac is very comfortable using El Capitan and hates change - actually took a while to get used to El Capitan from the previous macOS.
So I'm trying to decide which macOS to upgrade to that is not a dramatic change and that this MBa can handle comfortably.
Monterey is the most current macOS this MBa will run without any special patches - is that the macOS I should upgrade to or is an earlier one possibly better and less of a change from El Capitan?

 

[pm-r]

The user of this Mac is very comfortable using El Capitan and hates change - actually took a while to get used to El Capitan from the previous macOS.
So I'm trying to decide which macOS to upgrade to that is not a dramatic change and that this MBa can handle comfortably.

I'm sorry I don't have a proper answer for you, but as a user of a mid-2011 27" iMac currently running OS X 10.11: El Capitan, and mainly Google Chrome, or sometimes Firefox, but hardly ever Safari as a browser, and I cannot remember the last time I had trouble with a web page that they said couldn't be supported, but that was several years ago when I was trying to use and stay with Safari.

I would be curious what websites your family member is attempting to go to and having problems with their current El Capitan booted Mac.

What browser are they using and what version???

Maybe just switching the Browser and making sure it is updated to the most current version their El Capitan Mac can run may fix their problem, at least for some time.




- Patrick
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[Horsa]

Hi @krs - I think my thread about the Chromium-legacy browser may be of interest to you. It will mean your family member can carry on using El Cap for a good while longer, at least for web browsing purposes - no OS upgrade required.

I found a modern browser for older versions of OSX

NOTE FOR MODERATORS: I've just realised that this post probably belongs in "macOS - Apps and Programs" - please move if necessary. I searched the forums in case anyone else has mentioned this, but it came up a blank, so... As you'll see from my profile panel, I'm running El Cap on a 2008 Mac...

www.mac-forums.com

 

[krs]

Thanks for the suggestion guys, but it's not only the browser that is the problem, also the macOS itself.
The latest issue was trying to use Google Meet.
google Meet supports the current version and the 2 previous major releases of macOS.
Previously there was also a problem accessing the Jacquie Lawson website that had been paid for.

 

[Rod]

If it helps, Monterey was one of my favourite macOS but I was still running a few 32-bit apps initially so that was important to me at the time, but just generally I found it functioned really well on a Early 2015 13" MBP.

 

[krs]

If it helps, Monterey was one of my favourite macOS.........

Yes, that helps a lot.
Was there any Apple application missing or changed from what you had used previously in the macOS you ran that sticks in your mind?
I'm trying not to run into too many issues with that user who "just wants things to work same as before"
I ran into an issue when I upgraded from El Capitan to Mojave and found that Apple decided to ditch "Grab" for a more elaborate similar app but which unfortunately doesn't replace "Grab" the way I needed to use it.
I copied Grab from El Capitan to Mojave and it works but now has two quirks I can work around but I know the user of that MBa I want to upgrade wouldn't be happy with that.
Luckily she doesn't use 'Grab', but I still have her complaining about all the functionality she lost going from iPhoto to Photos.

On the technical side moving from El Capitan to Monterey - I see suggested on the net to do that in two steps, upgrade to High Sierra first and then to Monterey.
Has anyone done that direct macOS El Capitan to Monterey upgrade and is there anything specific to watch out for?
I remember on another Mac which I wanted to upgrade from El Capitan to Mojave, the upgrade using a Mojave USB installer initially didn't work - it seems because I was not connected to the net and the Mac required a firmware update to install Mojave.
Took me a while to figure that out (Apple's error/failure messages are often useless) but once connected to the net the Mojave install went smoothly.

 

[pm-r]

On the technical side moving from El Capitan to Monterey

Just an extra double reminder to make sure you have a recent current working backup of all the family members' data, maybe even keep their whole El Capitan OS and their data in its own separate bootable partition in case they need to quickly go back to something.

Just a thought.




- Patrick
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[krs]

yes...
I always make a full bootable backup just before an upgrade like that.
Making a bootable partition on the internal drive would be nice, but unfortunately there is insufficient disk space to do that.

 

[Rod]

This review is probably the most comprehensive you will find.

macOS 10.14 Mojave: The Ars Technica review

Dark Mode and iOS apps make this desert-themed release feel surprisingly verdant.

arstechnica.com

 

[Rod]

krs, as for your question about upgrading El Capitan > High Sierra > Monterey I cannot really advise as being somewhat of an "early adopter" I had already upgraded to High Sierra prior to the release of Monterey.

It's always been my opinion that sequential upgrading is best but that's only because I always do that. There's no concrete reason for that but I do note that in one article I read it mentions that the Monterey upgrade changes the filing system from HFS+ to APFS if it hasn't already been done. By that, they are referring to that change being previously made in High Sierra which I opted for as my MBP had an SSD HD.

As for "Grab" I did use it myself and although I found the new screen shot (Command + Shift + 5) vastly superior to the old Command + Shift + 3 or 4 (once I got used to it) I opted for another utility called Yoink which still works on macOS Sonoma.

Really all I can say is summed up in the "Conclusion" in the Ars Technica review, "The Mac's best update in years."