[Guide] Success! Install 10.8 on old unsupported Mac

[Buddygor]

To Make is Easier

Ok, so I did some work, and for those less technically inclined, I've compiled a modified SystemProfiler.plist for those who installed or upgraded to 10.8.5, and can't get further updates because MLPF patched it to still say 10.8.4

It removes the MLPF branding, gives the right build number (the latest, according to Wikipedia ), and changes the number to 10.8.5. After applying this, I could get the latest Safari, Security Update, and Mac App Store updates. Now I'm 100% up to date!

What you do is:

1. In the Finder status bar, click 'Go' then 'Go to Folder,' and copy/paste the following into the window that pops up: /System/Library/CoreServices/

2. Drag this SystemProfiler.plist into the Finder window that popped up, and authorize with your password to overwrite the old one.

3. Update, and enjoy!

 

[Michelasso]

Has anyone gotten imessage or FaceTime to work on the MacBook 4,1 running mountain lion? Whenever I try to sign in I get an error message. The tony Mac method doesn't work.

I'd like to know as well. MacBook2,1. I checked the Tonymacx86 guide and I am not even sure it applies to any (unsupported) Mac.

Was it working in 10.8.4 or lower releases? I just upgraded to ML (10.8.5), I can't believe I waited so long. This thing barely uses any virtual memory!! I can even run a Windows virtual machine. Slowly but not thrashing like with that Lion crap.

PS: Regarding the Facetime/Message etc issue, I am using my old Lion account. I just created a new user with the same Unix User ID and linked /Users/<my_user> to /Volumes/Lion/Users/<my_user>. Facetime apart it works fine and the fresh local admin account I made in the ML partition doesn't register in FT either.

 

[CamCroz99]

I'd like to know as well. MacBook2,1. I checked the Tonymacx86 guide and I am not even sure it applies to any (unsupported) Mac.

Was it working in 10.8.4 or lower releases? I just upgraded to ML (10.8.5), I can't believe I waited so long. This thing barely uses any virtual memory!! I can even run a Windows virtual machine. Slowly but not thrashing like with that Lion crap.

PS: Regarding the Facetime/Message etc issue, I am using my old Lion account. I just created a new user with the same Unix User ID and linked /Users/<my_user> to /Volumes/Lion/Users/<my_user>. Facetime apart it works fine and the fresh local admin account I made in the ML partition doesn't register in FT either.

Yea. The Tonymac stuff only said Clover and chameleon. I guess I'll be updating to 10.8.5 when I get home

 

[Michelasso]

Yea. The Tonymac stuff only said Clover and chameleon. I guess I'll be updating to 10.8.5 when I get home

Wait. I hope you didn't get me wrong. It isn't working in 10.8.5 for me. I was wondering if it worked with the previous 10.8.x releases. I went straight from 10.7.5 to 10.8.5.

 

[CamCroz99]

Wait. I hope you didn't get me wrong. It isn't working in 10.8.5 for me. I was wondering if it worked with the previous 10.8.x releases. I went straight from 10.7.5 to 10.8.5.

Nope. I've tried 10.8.2,3 and 4. Doesn't work for me on any of them.

 

[socalledsin]

Installed Mountain Lion 10.8.4 on my wifes early 2006, and everything other than Facetime is working great. At first we were getting the imessage issue, but called apple and they fixed it. Facetime calls, begins connecting and then just fails. Has anyone gotten facetime to connect? I was going to try moving up to 10.8.5, but it doesn't look that that is a fix.

 

[Wanderlust76]

I'm using the 10.8.5 Installer from the App Store. I guess too that the Frameworks work flawless with 10.8.4 but they seem not with 10.8.5 ....

Btw: it would be interesting to know what exactly is patched in the Frameworks. The ATI X1600 Kexts are simply those from 10.7.5 Lion.

I tried doing also a 10.8.4 usb key install and, unfortunately, I had the same problems after copying frameworks. Reparing permissions, changing owner and rights, clearing caches didn't work either...
Don't know what is patched, but I will compare files and see what changed inside.

 

[Michelasso]

Is the WPA2 Internet Sharing from Ethernet to WIFI working in 10.8.5 for anyone? I don't know what I did anymore replacing few files (airportd, InternetSharing, wifid, mDNSResponder and mDNSResponderHelper), only later I discovered that pressing "Option" I could get the WEP 40/128 bits to show. And that seems to work.

Oh, and in case you get issues connecting via WiFi I've found out that removing the old AP passwords from the keyring as well can fix it.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

After have been running ~6 months on my late-2006 MBP, I am now uninstalling MLPF and going back to Snow Leopard (I much prefer that over Lion).

Everything, including iCloud sync/imessage was working fine (And the main reason for me upgrading), except the following things:
• iWork '09 would not work. It would install fine, but all apps crash when starting.
• MS Office. Starts up fine, but can't activate and says install is missing something, so all documents start as read-only.
• Safari is a bit wonky. The more tabs you have, the more unresponsive it becomes, with parts of webpages that won't render. Firefox runs just fine, so it is most likely a graphic driver issue.

So in all, a fine machine if you can get past Safari being a bit strange. You just can't get any real work done on it...

 

[HereBeMonsters]

After have been running ~6 months on my late-2006 MBP, I am now uninstalling MLPF and going back to Snow Leopard (I much prefer that over Lion).

Everything, including iCloud sync/imessage was working fine (And the main reason for me upgrading), except the following things:
• iWork '09 would not work. It would install fine, but all apps crash when starting.
• MS Office. Starts up fine, but can't activate and says install is missing something, so all documents start as read-only.
• Safari is a bit wonky. The more tabs you have, the more unresponsive it becomes, with parts of webpages that won't render. Firefox runs just fine, so it is most likely a graphic driver issue.

So in all, a fine machine if you can get past Safari being a bit strange. You just can't get any real work done on it...

This is the issue I found as well, and it's a bit annoying now that I've spent money buying an OS I can't use. Oh well.

 

[PorkPieHat]

Non-MLPF method did not work

Well, that was a bust. I finally tried the non-MLPF method of updating to Mountain Lion on my Late-2006 20” 2.16 GHz Core2Duo iMac 5,1 with an ATI1600 GPU running OS 10.7.5, and the result was no audio, WiFi dropping every few minutes, and an inability to switch the startup volume using the Startup Disk preference pane. There are probably more issues, but I was so disgusted after running Mountain Lion for 5 minutes that I restarted from my Lion backup disk. Are there fixes for these problems? If not, it’s back to crappy old Lion for me.

 

[PorkPieHat]

Has anyone with an iMac 5,1 gotten the non-MLPF method to work?

.
Has anyone with a Late-2006 Core2Duo iMac 5,1 with ATI1600 graphics successfully installed Mountain Lion using the non-MLPF method? I tried it yesterday and ended up with no audio, WiFi dropping every few minutes, and an inability to switch the startup volume using the Startup Disk preference pane.

If you had no such problems or were able to fix them, could you please tell me how you did it?
.

 

[bubor]

.
Has anyone with a Late-2006 Core2Duo iMac 5,1 with ATI1600 graphics successfully installed Mountain Lion using the non-MLPF method? I tried it yesterday and ended up with no audio, WiFi dropping every few minutes, and an inability to switch the startup volume using the Startup Disk preference pane.

If you had no such problems or were able to fix them, could you please tell me how you did it?
.

I dont see those issues, I've uploaded my osx image to piratebay.

 

[10tacleBoy]

How did you do that without using MLPF?

 

[PorkPieHat]

There are a few different methods. You can check them out by perusing the 'Similar Threads’ section at the bottom of this page. Most of those threads start with an installation guide that’ll walk you through the process.

Do you have a Late-2006 iMac like mine?

 

[10tacleBoy]

Yeah. Well not really me, but my dad.
And I'd like to install ML on his machine to give him the ability to use iMessage.
I already tried it with MLPF but iMessage and Facetime don't work (somebody in this thread told me to give Apple a call so they fix it for me, but due to my laziness I haven't done that yet). The rest of the OS runs fine though.
So maybe I'll try it one more time without using MLPF...

Edit: Oh, what a pity... nevermind.

known issues
1, find my mac of iCloud does not work.
this installation method does not create the Recovery Partition for you. so you need to create it by yourself to fix the issue.

2, sound driver does not work.
you may fix the issue by installing the old AppleHDA.kext from Lion.

3, graphics driver does not work.
there is no complete solution for the issue at this time. and you may help us by porting Linux Graphics Drivers from Intel to OSX.

 

[atvusr]

How did you do that without using MLPF?

See Post #3741.

The solution still works, including Security-Update 2014-002.

 

[bubor]

See Post #3741.

No issues with Audio / WiFi / Startup Volume on my MBP2,2 late 2006 - but defective Icons (Pixel Salad) after copying the patched OpenGL/CL Frameworks ....

yes because on of the update replace those, preserve that, and it works very well.

 

[PorkPieHat]

What are the differences between MVPF, MLPF, SFOTT and MLForAll?

.
Does anyone know the differences between MVPF, MLPF, SFOTT and MLForAll?

Such simple distinctions are difficult to figure out because this thread and others like it are so full of different workarounds, software, methods and [poorly written] installation guides — most of which don’t clearly indicate which specific Macs or OS X version they’re designed for — that they've become ulcerously frustrating and time wasting in the extreme, even if you’ve read each and every one of this thread's 11,764,000 posts.
.

 

[atvusr]

Does anyone know the differences between MVPF, MLPF, SFOTT and MLForAll?

I would say:

MVPF: MacPostFactor, allows to install 10.8 Mountain Lion as well as 10.9 Mavericks on older Macs (initially called MaVericksPostFactor, successor of MountainLionPostFactor)

MLPF: MountainLionPostFactor, allows to install 10.8 Mountain Lion on older Macs

SFOTT: App-Script to create a Install-Media for 10.8 Mountain Lion as well as 10.9 Mavericks from the App-Store Installer

MLForAll: one of the Developers of MountainLionPostFactor as well as MacPostFactor.

 

[jonobin]

since hackerwayne and ml4all seems to be gone in the fog, anyone is able to help us installing an almost-clean-like installation of yosemite on macs with gma x3100?

here is the link

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1761432/

 

[Wanderlust76]

going to upload my osx image to thepiratebay, try it yourself. I dont use facetime, I dont see any issues.

Thank you very much: it works great on my iMac 5,1!

 

[atvusr]

yes because on of the update replace those, preserve that, and it works very well.

No, it still doesn't work.

I've tried it again and installed 10.8.5 via SFOTT. Directly thereafter I've copied the patched OpenGL/CL Framework files into the respective folders of 10.8.5. No updates or any other files. To copy the Framework files I've used a external OS X, selected all patched files in the respective folder via Finder, copied them with Command+C and inserted them with Command+V into 10.8.5. Finder asked for replacing the existing files then - yes, replace all. After booting into 10.8.5, the Icons are defective and showing Pixel salad. Repairing permissions with Disk Utility doesn't help ....

 

[bubor]

No, it still doesn't work.

I've tried it again and installed 10.8.5 via SFOTT. Directly thereafter I've copied the patched OpenGL/CL Framework files into the respective folders of 10.8.5. No updates or any other files. To copy the Framework files I've used a external OS X, selected all patched files in the respective folder via Finder, copied them with Command+C and inserted them with Command+V into 10.8.5. Finder asked for replacing the existing files then - yes, replace all. After booting into 10.8.5, the Icons are defective and showing Pixel salad. Repairing permissions with Disk Utility doesn't help ....

10.8.5 doesnt include update, you may install 10.8.5 what include or not.
Try my image from piratebay.

 

[Wanderlust76]

No, it still doesn't work.

I've tried it again and installed 10.8.5 via SFOTT. Directly thereafter I've copied the patched OpenGL/CL Framework files into the respective folders of 10.8.5. No updates or any other files. To copy the Framework files I've used a external OS X, selected all patched files in the respective folder via Finder, copied them with Command+C and inserted them with Command+V into 10.8.5. Finder asked for replacing the existing files then - yes, replace all. After booting into 10.8.5, the Icons are defective and showing Pixel salad. Repairing permissions with Disk Utility doesn't help ....

What are you using to unpack the 7z file? I was using WinZip for Mac and the symlinks were lost. So maybe you should try to copy just the files and not the links.
I'll do some tests when I'll be back home, thanks to the image made by bubor I will understand what gone wrong... If you download it, you can try to copy that folders out of the dmg file.