Hi, im new in this type of stuff, I recently got a 27" iMac from 2009 and im very lost because this is my 2nd Mac in hands (the first came like 1 week ago and is a 2017 Mac Air) so, im looking for help knowing what can I do and don't in this SO. Any help please?
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MacOS High Sierra in 2025?
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Please post the exact specs of your 2009 27" iMac. What specific questions or help are you looking for?
I always visit https://everymac.com/ to see/compare the specs and see what is possible in getting an old mac more recent. if at all possible.
Ok, its not accurate because im far from home, but I remember is a 27" inch iMac 2009 with a Core i5, the ATI radeon 7xxx ( I don't remember the exact model) and 6 GB of ram (so in resume the model iMac 11,1). Im looking for stuff like web browsing, light gaming and class (Visual Studio Code, LibreOffice or an old version of Office) Time Machine for my MBA and movies. That is what im going to do in Grosso Modo.
This is a heritage from an old friend of mine who died in 2011 (so the OS and apps are outdated rn) and I don't have the money for another iMac (the Air I recently bought for 20€ was broken and I decided to fix it)
I've been using iMac 2009 with High Sierra until recently (actually it's my 13yr son who is using it.)
On Mac OS High Sierra, the following Apps work well:
Microsoft Edge
Google Chrome
Safari (if you insist on using Apple app)
MS Office 2011 (or 2012, not quite remember); before that I used Libre Office with no issue, just some inconvenience due to my familiarity with MS Office.
For gaming, the HD4850 500MB in iMac 2009 is not enough in every aspect. I upgraded to Quadro K1100m, some web-base games still worked, but very laggy.
Gaming experience has improved a lot since I upgraded the GPU to Quadro M4000m 4GB. (quite pricey)
Now I have removed the Quadro M4000m to install to iMac 2011; leaving my son's iMac with the cheap AMD Firepro M6100 2GB (cheap and affordable). The OS has been upgraded to Monterey using OCLP, MS Office 365. The general experience is quite good. My son doesn't play game much, he watches Youtube most of his online time.
So for your iMac 2009, I would suggest you spend some money for a better usage experience and convenience.
First thing first, upgrade your iMac OS to the latest version of High Sierra and get the firmware updated to the latest version in the process (mostly for APFS format to be recognizable and usable)
1. Replace the internal disk with SSD (256GB is nearly enough, 512GB is enough for light use)
2. Increase RAM to 16GB (2nd DDR3 SODIMM are dirt cheap now, around 8USD per 8GB stick where I live). You can go with 4x4GB or 2x8GB, depending on how you can source for them in your neighborhood, sometimes you can get them for free from the local laptop repair shop.
3. With OCLP, you can upgrade the Mac OS to much recent version, like Monterey, Venture or even Sequoia. Check OCLP website for supported GPU.
Ok, I upgrade the OS to High Sierra (What a headache, is somewhat impossible to update whitout problems from 10.6. to 10.13,) and got it running, its so smooth whit the OG Drive (1TB HHD) and improved RAM (8 Gb) because is not used much, but I ran into a problem, my newer MBA 2017 running macOS Big Sur (problems updating, this is for another thread) don't recognise each other with Airdrop because legacy airdrop was removed in catalina, somebody has a fix for this or I need to use all the time iCloud?
P.D: I don't going to use this Mac for gaming, because I have a Windows machine working perfectly for the games I play (ETS2, BeamNGdrive, My Summer Car...), and this is for class use, so the gaming stuff is not a problem
None of the Chromium based browser works with High Sierra, because officially these browser (Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave etc.) only support macOS Big Sur and later.
You would need to find chromium legacy for most updated browsers. Safari is pretty much out of date at this point.
If you were downloading installation files from Microsoft, it will not work. You have to find installers that is compatible for High Sierra. Office 365 willl run, but you aren't get any updates from Microsoft at all.
I wouldn't patch iMac past Ventura. Sonoma and Sequoia will run quite slowly with these machines.
Totally agree. These iMacs seem to go well with Monterey...
If one concerns about security issues, he can switch to Linux and Windows 11.. Still plenty of uses for the iMacs.
I have 2009 MacBook Pro. the thing about these earlier Mac is it doesn't fully compatible with EFI. You will need to find a Windows installation DVD to install Windows 10 and patch to Windows 11 via upgrade.
For some reason, my MacBook Pro won't boot from Windows 10 DVD.. all I get is flashing cursor.
TBH.. As much as I love old Macs, Macs produced before 2012 are very out of date. Getting Windows 10 on these machine are pain in the a**, as Bootcamp doesn't support Windows 10 and you would need to find Windows 10 DVD and install via BIOS mode.
Linux is on other hand would work, but some Linux distributions will have problem with Wi-Fi drivers.
Nobody should really use Macs before 2012 as daily drivers now, they are just very out of date now.
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