Installing Snow Leopard (and Rosetta) into Parallels on modern Intel Macs

Thank you for your cooperation! I just do not have the time to research the issues raised by your interesting post! And for $29 why bother...

Just curious: these PPC applications need Leopard and will not run in Snow Leopard? Or you were just curious to see if you could install Leopard?

OK: Thanks for those tips; I did not realize the difference between Snow Leopard's Image Capture and Leopard's.

I use Lion's Image Capture for my Epson Artisan 810, but admittedly, my scanning needs are primarily document based and not graphics.

Interesting point on saving applications over to the Snow Leopard environment. Since the Shared Folder does not give me access to the Applications folder, I usually use the GO Menu in the Finder and enter the IP (192.168.0.xxx) of my Lion environment and then use File Sharing to move applications over. Maybe that makes a difference...

check your private messages

the latest Parallels upgrade, WORKS FOR ME!

mrmystiq said:

Hello all,

Wondering if anyone else tried the latest Parallels upgrade, Build 7.0.15098
(Revision 770637; June 13, 2012). It won't let me boot into SL, saying that it's not supported. Has anyone tried to do a fresh re-install? Any solutions? Does anyone know where to find the previous update, to be able to downgrade until there is a work-around?

Thanks,
Sasha

Click to expand...

Sasha:

1. You cannot receive PMs. Turn it back on.

2. I updated to the latest Parallels upgrade, Build 7.0.15098
(Revision 770637; June 13, 2012) and my Snow Leopard partition works fine.

3. I have not yet had the time to create a new SL partition from scratch, to make sure that it will still work, and I will do this later...

Sasha: It sounds like you had a failure to recreate the file ServerVersion.plist. This could happen if you Suspended your Snow Leopard partition without actually shutting it down, or if you otherwise had a crash or other "quit" of Parallels without a full Snow Leopard shut down.

I need more information about what you did between your last successful Snow Leopard experience and now, and then I will post instructions about a fix.

Nice: THANKS!

OK: Nothing like the satisfaction of getting it done right yourself! Glad to see all is well now and you are able to use your ScanFont software while in Lion.

I still recommend NOT installing the Apple Software Update v1.0

Evertype said:

By the way, from the GM 10.6.3 I have installed Build 10D575. Is that the same build number one gets when one purchases the SL update from Apple?

Click to expand...

GM - ? Where do you find the Build number?

There are only two Retail Snow Leopard Install DVDs available: one installs 10.6 and the other installs 10.6.3; from installing either, you must use Software Update to obtain the final version 10.6.8.

Troubleshooting "An invalid Mac OS version is installed"

Troubleshooting "An invalid Mac OS version is installed"

Once you have a working Snow Leopard partition, the file ServerVersion.plist is required to be located at /Macintosh HD/System/Library/CoreServices/ when starting Parallels and first booting Snow Leopard.

However, the process com.rectalogic.vmware.plist, created at Step Three #2, removes this file while Snow Leopard is running, so that Software Updates will run properly and File Sharing can be turned on and off. When a Shut Down is effected, this same process recreates this file, so it will again be present for Parallels to find when it again boots Snow Leopard.

Using the Parallels SUSPEND feature and/or if there is anything that ends Parallels without a proper Shut Down (such as a crash of Parallels while Snow Leopard is running) could result in this file NOT being recreated. Since it will be missing when Parallels reboots Snow Leopard, the resulting error message "An invalid Mac OS version is installed" will appear.

Here is how to fix this problem:

1. Go to ~/Documents/Parallels/ and double-click your Mac OS X Snow Leopard.pvm BACKUP file created in Step Four.

2. If you see a Dialog Box similar to "Duplicate MAC addresses detected. Do you want to recreate the MAC address for the virtual machine "Mac OS X Snow Leopard3 (1)" or use the current MAC address anyway?" -- SELECT Create New.

3. You now want to be at the window in Parallels where the backup partition is loaded but NOT yet started. If the backup Snow Leopard partition starts, wait until it fully starts up and then using the Apple Menu, do a Shut Down. See the image below.

4. In the Parallels Virtual Machine menu, go down to Configure... Unlock to allow changes, if necessary and click on the + symbol go down to another Hard Disk. Click on Type: Existing Image File and click on the Location box and when the Open box appears, go to ~/Documents/Parallels/.

5. Find the Mac OS X Snow Leopard.pvm file from the Partition that you want to fix and click on it and click Open. When it opens click on the Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server-0.hdd file (or similarly named) and click Open. Again: when this file opens, click on the Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server-0.hdd file and click Open. Now you should have the box similar to the last image below and click OK. This will result in a Hard Disk 2 added to your Hardware List.

6. Click the red button to close the Hardware box and Click to start your Snow Leopard Partition. When Snow Leopard starts up you will see TWO Macintosh HDs.

7. Inside Snow Leopard, go to /Applications/Utilities/ and launch Terminal in the upper Macintosh HD. Type this command in Terminal:

touch '/ServerVersion.plist'

Quit Terminal

8. Open the upper Macintosh HD and you should see the file ServerVersion.plist. Drag it to the Desktop.

9. In the lower Macintosh HD go to /Macintosh HD/System/Library/CoreServices/ and drag the ServerVersion.plist file from the Desktop to this open folder. When it says that "The item 'ServerVersion.plist' can't be moved because 'CoreServices' can't be modified." Click on Authenticate and enter your Snow Leopard account password. Look inside this folder and confirm that a copy of ServerVersion.plist now exists there.

10. Keep the original copy of ServerVersion.plist on the Desktop for future use. Shut down the Backup Snow Leopard partition from the Apple Menu.

11. Quit Parallels and in the future the Backup Snow Leopard partition will always have both Macintosh HDs available if you must ever boot it up again and copy the ServerVersion.plist file to the lower /Macintosh HD/System/Library/CoreServices/ .

Now if you boot your main Snow Leopard Partition, it should boot up correctly!

YOU MUST AVOID USING THE PARALLELS SUSPEND FEATURE AND ALWAYS MANUALLY DO A FULL SHUT DOWN OF SNOW LEOPARD, ESPECIALLY WHEN SHUTTING DOWN OR RESTARTING YOUR MACINTOSH.

[click on individual images to ENLARGE]

Do NOT use the Parallels SUSPEND feature

You must avoid using the Parallels SUSPEND feature and always manually do a full shut down of Snow Leopard, especially when shutting down or restarting your Macintosh.

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If you want to preserve the current installation DMG of Parallels BEFORE you do an update: once you download the update, but BEFORE you actually install it; in the Finder, in the GO Menu, go to GO TO FOLDER and enter the following:

~/Library/Parallels/Downloads

and Click GO.

Make a copy of the DMG file located there and save it to an alternate location for future use.

If you want to do a downgrade of a version of Parallels 7, be sure to do an UNINSTALL of the current version, before you then do an Install of an earlier version. The UNINSTALL will NOT delete any of your existing pvm files.

jimweber said:

When I get to 8. in step 2, I get a grey window with the Apple logo and a spinning wheel. I suppose that indicates that it is try to load but it never does.

I'm using a Family Pack install disc if that makes any difference.

Click to expand...

I have never used a Family Pack Install DVD but it should not make a difference.

Look at previous posts #45 & 46 and let me know if the image is the same.

Have you tried the Troubleshooting Step #1 and Troubleshooting Step #2 in posts 9 & 23?

Cguy said:

I get in trouble with Part 2, Step 8 - where I get the "Invalid Mac OS Version".

The only copy I have of Snow Leopard came with my Mac Pro, it's a White "CPU Drop-in DVD".

Any suggestions?

THanks!

Click to expand...

Yes: your copy of Snow Leopard is "machine specific." You need a retail copy of Snow Leopard, that will install on any machine, including virtualization:

Snow Leopard from the Apple Store - $29 with free shipping

jimweber said:

When I get to 8. in step 2, I get a grey window with the Apple logo and a spinning wheel. I suppose that indicates that it is try to load but it never does.

I'm using a Family Pack install disc if that makes any difference.

Click to expand...

Cguy said:

RATS! I swear I must have at least a Family Copy of Snow Leopard... I am beginning to think I must never have upgraded the other macs from Leopard...


Thanks though!

Click to expand...

If you find your Family Pack copy, let us know if it works. jimweber's post suggests that he had problems. I would not expect any, but I do not have a copy of the Family Pack Snow Leopard to test.

In any event, $29 solves the problem...