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quaresma

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 20, 2013
203
369
Hi. I bought a MacBook Air 13 early 2014, and just wanted to know if I can install Mountain Lion on it?

My machine came with Mavericks, is there some sort of protection that will deny downgrading to ML?
 
No with a small maybe, yes. No, you can't install an older version of OS X on the computer than it shipped with.

What you can possibly do is install ML on a usb drive and boot that. Not ideal for a portable but I've read that works.

But don't go trying to install on the internal drive.
 
No with a small maybe, yes. No, you can't install an older version of OS X on the computer than it shipped with.

What you can possibly do is install ML on a usb drive and boot that. Not ideal for a portable but I've read that works.
No, external or internal drive doesn't matter. The 2014 Macbook Air cannot boot from any version of 10.8.
 
No, external or internal drive doesn't matter. The 2014 Macbook Air cannot boot from any version of 10.8.

The 2014 MacBook Air will boot OS X 10.8.5 and work without any issue, if pre-installed on an external drive.

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Hi. I bought a MacBook Air 13 early 2014, and just wanted to know if I can install Mountain Lion on it?

My machine came with Mavericks, is there some sort of protection that will deny downgrading to ML?

No there isn't any prevention. The 2014 MacBook Air will boot OS X 10.8.5 and work without any issue, if OS X 10.8.5 is pre-installed on an external drive.
But with Mountain Lion, you may experience decreased battery life since many power optimisations added in OS X 10.9 are absent in previous versions.
 
10.8.5 won't include the kexts needed to support the hardware in the 2014 MBA. The TB2 ports won't work, graphics may be an issue (different graphics processor than any model supported by 10.8.5 would have), among other things. This is the reason Apple says you can't use an OS that is older than that which the computer shipped with.

Exceptions to that would be like a Mid 2012 MBP that was bought in December, it could still run Lion even though it shipped with ML since the model was originally shipped with Lion in June 2012.
 
The 2014 MacBook Air will boot OS X 10.8.5 and work without any issue, if pre-installed on an external drive.

I stand corrected. Given that the mid 2013 Air, which is the same hardware as the 2014 Air, shipped with 10.8.4, 10.8.5 should indeed work fine.
 
Exceptions to that would be like a Mid 2012 MBP that was bought in December, it could still run Lion even though it shipped with ML since the model was originally shipped with Lion in June 2012.

My Late 2011 Macbook Pro came with Lion, *Never* shipped with Snow Leopard, and worked perfectly with 10.6.8.

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10.8.5 won't include the kexts needed to support the hardware in the 2014 MBA. The TB2 ports won't work

The early 2014 Macbook Air does not have Thunderbolt 2 and it has HD5000 gfx, exactly the same as the 2013 model.
 
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