Any Way to Upgrade to Catalina without using the App Store/System Preferences?

[Kashchei]

I am on my work machine, a late 2012 iMac and I figure Catalina will be the last operating system it will support. I'd like to upgrade to it, but I have a problem. When I go to the system preferences, I get the following error message "Update Not Found - The requested version of MacOS is not available." This is true despite the fact that the little red light is lit, telling me that there is an update ready to be installed. I seem to recall in the past I was able to download a new MacOS from a website and install it from there. Is this still a possibility?

 

[Fishrrman]

I would rather keep a 2012 iMac on Mojave (which is a fine and smooth OS) than "upgrade it" to Catalina (which is a lousy OS with no hope of "going further").

My opinion only.

 

[Juicy Box]

You can always make an installer on a different Mac if your work Mac is having issues with the App Store.

What are the specs of your Late 2012 iMac?

 

[honestone33]

Additionally, before you upgrade, make sure all the third party applications that you use are "ready" for Catalina. You might need to upgrade some of them, or in the case of Onyx (and maybe a few others), install a completely new, Catalina-specific version.

 

[ScreenSavers]

I’d upgrade to Catalina. It’s great and has no major issues. You could use the Catalina patcher and select “install to this machine.” It won’t apply any patches on a natively supported system.

 

[honestone33]

I’d upgrade to Catalina. It’s great and has no major issues. You could use the Catalina patcher and select “install to this machine.” It won’t apply any patches on a natively supported system.

I have needed to use dosdude1's Catalina patcher to download and install OS 10.15.3, and it worked very well. But I did a clean, fresh installation, then migrated/copied needed files, folders, apps, settings, etc. from a SuperDuper! backup that I did right before I did the installation.

My prior late 2012 Mac Mini worked flawlessly with Catalina, as does my current late 2018 Mac Mini.

But you might want to wait just a little longer (assuming you do not need to upgrade immediately), ad V10.15.4 is currently in the 4th phase of beta testing. That version could be arriving soon.