Different language/Region OSX

[Armen1er]

Hi Everyone,

My girlfriend has a MBP 2012 version which she purchased in Germany so the language and keyboard is German.

I'm not familiar with Mac at all so these are my questions since her laptop is ultra slow:

1) Can I install an American English version OSX on her German laptop? Her keyboard is the same except the Z and the Y key are swapped.

2) Is it possible to upgrade ram as in does it have to be a specific manufacturer etc?

3) Would a Samsung Evo SSD be compatible?

Lastly does anyone believe the above upgrades would speed up her laptop? It runs super slow and gets the color wheel often enough where I want to throw it out the window and I'm pretty sure she still has the factory OSX since purchased and never upgraded.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Best regards,
Armen

 

[owbp]

Hi,
MBP 2012 still has the swappable RAM and HDD, so it would be quite easy to change it.
HDD connection is SATA so putting something like Samsung Evo 850 should be a 5 minute job.
And yes, it will speed up and lose the spinning ball (especially after SSD upgrade) - i did the same thing on my wife's Macbook 2009 (still with 3GB RAM) and she cant believe what the difference in speed it made.

As for language, i bought my Mac Pro from Switzerland so it was on German/Swiss and every new installation it automatically booted into that language.
The thing that did it for me, after making usb install was PRAM (NVRAM) reset before booting into installation.
Then, for the first time it asked me what language do i want to proceed in.

Hope it helps!

P.S. As for the RAM, don't pay attention to the manufacturer, but the specific model (you can mix manufacturers, but model of ram has to be exactly the same).

 

[Armen1er]

Hi,
MBP 2012 still has the swappable RAM and HDD, so it would be quite easy to change it.
HDD connection is SATA so putting something like Samsung Evo 850 should be a 5 minute job.
And yes, it will speed up and lose the spinning ball (especially after SSD upgrade) - i did the same thing on my wife's Macbook 2009 (still with 3GB RAM) and she cant believe what the difference in speed it made.

As for language, i bought my Mac Pro from Switzerland so it was on German/Swiss and every new installation it automatically booted into that language.
The thing that did it for me, after making usb install was PRAM (NVRAM) reset before booting into installation.
Then, for the first time it asked me what language do i want to proceed in.

Hope it helps!

P.S. As for the RAM, don't pay attention to the manufacturer, but the specific model (you can mix manufacturers, but model of ram has to be exactly the same).

Thanks for the tips owbp!

Sorry to ask but I'm not quite familiar with Mac. Can you elaborate more on section about upgrading? Did you do a brand new OSX install from a bootable USB drive to the new SSD? If so did you use an American version OSX or is there such thing as different versions/regions for OSX?

How do I do the PRAM (NVRAM) reset?

Sorry for the dumb questions, I'm not familiar with Mac at all.

Thank you for taking the time to help me out! I really appreciate it!

Best regards,
Armen

 

[owbp]

No problem @Armen1er , glad to help.

Can you elaborate more on section about upgrading?

Of course. I have mostly always done clean install of the OS. Just be sure, if you have some important thing on you Mac, to have Time Machine backup, or to just copy important things from User folder (Photo gallery, iTunes and so on...) to external drive and then copy it back after clean install. Once i did it with Migration Assistant but didn't like the feel of the OS afterwards (it felt too slow, but i think that's just my luck ).
So, download OS from App Store, make bootable USB and that is it.

There is no such thing as different language OS X, they all have all the languages inside the installer, you just have to chose it as the first step of the OS install.

How do I do the PRAM (NVRAM) reset?

NVRAM reset, and i think it's the same for Macbook (but feel free to check online), is done by holding Option+Command+P+R keys at startup chime. Mac should restart again and the startup chime should be louder this time. Yo can do it 2-3 times to be sure.
Also, just not to confuse you, Alt=Option, Command=Apple sign key.

P.S. (Again, sorry) You could do install over the existing OS X, just don't format/erase HDD in Disk Utility, but continue to follow steps in USB Installer (it will keep all of your files). The important thing about USB installer is that you can do PRAM reset before you boot into it to change language of your OS installation.

 

[Armen1er]

Owbp you are the best! Thank you so much for all your help and patience and time!

I'll do the upgrades and post up how it went.

Once again thank you!