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If you buy a new mac with Lion, can you download/install it on your old Macs

R

Ruahrc

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 9, 2009
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I have a question. Say I'm running a mac with SL right now.

If I were to go buy a new Mac, with Lion preinstalled, would I be able to upgrade my current mac to Lion without having to buy it from the app store?

Here's my thinking: IIRC, the EULA for Lion says that by owning one license you can install it (and run something like 1 virtualization) on each mac you own. Which means, in buying the new Mac, I receive one license for Lion, which in turn entitles me to install it on each of the Macs I own. Is this right? If I logged into the mac app store, would it show that I have "credit" for owning Lion and would be able to download the installer, or is the EULA that applies to pre-installed versions of Lion on macs different?

I'm not trying to cheat the system, but an honest question I came up with in seeing that if you buy one new mac with Lion, do you have to buy Lion again to upgrade your older existing macs- whereas the EULA (at least for the Mac App Store downloaded version) seems to indicate that you should be allowed to install it once on all the macs you own?

Ruahrc
 
I don't think so. You don't get credit through the App Store for Lion if you buy a new Mac so there would be no way to download it.
 
But you can if you used a redeem code!

Interesting caveat on this answer - it appears if you purchased a Mac prior to Lion's release (I bought mine on June 24th) and it came with Snow Leopard - that you can use your Lion license on your other macs. I haven't completed the operation yet, but I am downloading Lion on my new mac right now. When I go to the AppStore on my older MacBook if shows Lion in the purchased page with an "install" button.

I'll post back if it all works.
 
prhammer said:
Interesting caveat on this answer - it appears if you purchased a Mac prior to Lion's release (I bought mine on June 24th) and it came with Snow Leopard - that you can use your Lion license on your other macs. I haven't completed the operation yet, but I am downloading Lion on my new mac right now. When I go to the AppStore on my older MacBook if shows Lion in the purchased page with an "install" button.

I'll post back if it all works.
Click to expand...

I'd suggest that you create a boot Lion disk that you can use to update all your Mac computers. I made one before I upgraded any of my Mac computers. It saved me a lot of time. I did clean installs on all my Mac computers.
 
Can you re download Lion from the mac app store by holding down option on a mac that comes with lion preinstalled? If you can do this, then you could install lion on your other computers.

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By the way, I know you can do this with iLife and it is completely legit.
 
You are allowed to install the OS on up to 5 machines that you own. I don't know how you'd go about getting the copy at the moment except for redownloading it, but I know legally you're in the clear.

May you find water and shade, Rhuarc.
 
rossip said:
Can you re download Lion from the mac app store by holding down option on a mac that comes with lion preinstalled? If you can do this, then you could install lion on your other computers.

----------

By the way, I know you can do this with iLife and it is completely legit.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the mac app store is completely disembodied from your mac...you buy a new mac, you never bought it in the mac store...you can't access it to install on other macs....

As for re-downloading it....it doesn't matter if its not on your account....and if you paid for it in the app store you can just install it on all your macs without having to do anything tricky unless you have 6 macs....even then tho, you could reauthorize your other macs...install it on the new mac, then reauthorize.
 
gentlefury said:
I'm pretty sure the mac app store is completely disembodied from your mac...you buy a new mac, you never bought it in the mac store...you can't access it to install on other macs....

As for re-downloading it....it doesn't matter if its not on your account....and if you paid for it in the app store you can just install it on all your macs without having to do anything tricky unless you have 6 macs....even then tho, you could reauthorize your other macs...install it on the new mac, then reauthorize.
Click to expand...

In regard to your first statement, this is not true for iLife. Once you buy a new Mac with iLife '11 preinstalled, your iLife licenses get linked to your apple ID during setup.

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/29/new-mac-purchases-bring-ilife-11-to-users-older-computers/

The question remains as to whether or not a license to lion gets linked to your apple ID when you set up a mac with lion preinstalled.

EDIT:

Actually the question might have been answered in the second post :)
 
Sky Blue said:
I don't think so. You don't get credit through the App Store for Lion if you buy a new Mac so there would be no way to download it.
Click to expand...

I'll agree. Although, if you receive a promo code for Lion with your purchase, then yes you can. If not then there is no way to do so as the App Store doesn't know you own a copy of it. I do think that Apple should come up with a method to allow you to install on all of your computers since people who got it for free (like me) for purchasing a Mac between June 6 and release date, are allowed to install on as many as we wish.
 
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