Monterey on M2 Mac Mini?

[jasnw]

I'm assuming the new Mac Minis come with Ventura installed. Has anyone tried falling back (or forward-to-the-past, as the case may be) to Monterey? I've got an M2Pro Mini coming and I'd rather start off on Monterey if possible.

 

[headlessmike]

I'm assuming the new Mac Minis come with Ventura installed. Has anyone tried falling back (or forward-to-the-past, as the case may be) to Catalina? I've got an M2Pro Mini coming and I'd rather start off on Catalina if possible.

Catalina will never work as it was only released for Intel Macs. I can’t see Big Sur or Monterey working either. That would require some serious hacking and is probably not feasible since no M2 Pro Macs were around until after Ventura was released.

 

[jasnw]

Awk - my bad. I meant Monterey. I've got too many machines on too many versions of macOS.

OK, topic is now correct.

 

[CausticPuppy]

Nope:

Can M1 Macs run older versions of macOS?

Need to run Catalina, Mojave or an older version of macOS on an M1 Mac? Here's why you can't - and what your best option is

www.macworld.com

No Apple Silicon support in Catalina.

 

[now i see it]

Its never been possible in the past to install an older operating system on a mac than the one it shipped with.

 

[russell_314]

Its never been possible in the past to install an older operating system on a mac than the one it shipped with.

This... Other than having iPad "System Settings" 🤮 it's not bad.

 

[eric89074]

According to everymac they come with 16.2, so that should be the lowest version it will ever run.

 

[Orizence]

This... Other than having iPad "System Settings" 🤮 it's not bad.

Photolab 6 has a bug with putting a purplish hue to images when rendering with the Neural Engine on MacOS 13. Hasn't been fixed by either DxO or Apple yet, works fine on Monterey though...

 

[sam_dean]

The newest Macs that can run macOS Monterey are any of the 2022 models.

- MBP 13" M2
- MBA M2
- Mac Studio M1 Max/Studio

And all M1 Mac.

2023 & newer model Macs will not run macOS Monterey such as

- Mac mini M2/M2 Pro
- MBP 14"/16" M2 Pro/Max

Good opportunity to buy refurbs or discounted phased out models.

 

[Fishrrman]

The answer is:
No.

 

[ignatius345]

This... Other than having iPad "System Settings" 🤮 it's not bad.

Ugh. Yes. I still struggle with it and I suspect I will for some time to come. In one update they threw out decades of visually organized MacOS System Preferences and replaced it the the sheer chaos of iOS/iPadOS Settings.

Granted, System Preferences could have used some cleanup, but they really threw out the baby with the bathwater here. All you can do now is search and hope for the best.

 

[russell_314]

Ugh. Yes. I still struggle with it and I suspect I will for some time to come. In one update they threw out decades of visually organized MacOS System Preferences and replaced it the the sheer chaos of iOS/iPadOS Settings.

Granted, System Preferences could have used some cleanup, but they really threw out the baby with the bathwater here. All you can do now is search and hope for the best.

It's Apple's move to touchscreen. They've been fighting it for years now but have given up. It's going to happen either in 2024 or 2025

 

[ignatius345]

It's Apple's move to touchscreen. They've been fighting it for years now but have given up. It's going to happen either in 2024 or 2025

🤮 I'm so deeply against this move. Fix iPadOS so it doesn't suck so badly, and leave us MacOS.

 

[CausticPuppy]

I would love to have a touchscreen Mac mini.

 

[jasnw]

OK, three days in to fighting Ventura on my new (and very nice) M2Pro Mini. Damn. Why do the developers at Apple feel the need to keep changing things that are NOT broken, and breaking things that were NOT broken? I think Apple does not like Mail. They keep breaking more and more things in it. A+ for the new hardware, D- for Ventura.

Anyway, has anyone seen a mapping of old System Preferences to new System Preferences? I'm getting tired of having to Google to find where things are.

 

[russell_314]

OK, three days in to fighting Ventura on my new (and very nice) M2Pro Mini. Damn. Why do the developers at Apple feel the need to keep changing things that are NOT broken, and breaking things that were NOT broken? I think Apple does not like Mail. They keep breaking more and more things in it. A+ for the new hardware, D- for Ventura.

Anyway, has anyone seen a mapping of old System Preferences to new System Preferences? I'm getting tired of having to Google to find where things are.

I'm with you on the dislike of the new System Settings. Just the tip if you didn't already know, use the search box on the top left. If you kind of know what you're looking for you can find it that way.

 

[binba]

Its never been possible in the past to install an older operating system on a mac than the one it shipped with.

Yes, this used to be the years-long hard rule, but it is no longer the case. We bought a Mac Studio a couple of weeks ago which shipped with Ventura, and were able to downgrade it to Monterey with no problems and no hacks.

That said, I'm not surprised that for a legit new model like the M2, Apple didn't bother to test or allow it to run with an older OS. So I'm not disputing the answer this thread is about, the Mini M2. Personally I haven't tested.

 

[Fishrrman]

binba wrote:
"Yes, this used to be the years-long hard rule, but it is no longer the case. We bought a Mac Studio a couple of weeks ago which shipped with Ventura, and were able to downgrade it to Monterey with no problems and no hacks."

No, nothing has changed.
The reason you were able to install Monterey on the Studio is because the Studio originally shipped with Monterey.

Since Ventura has since been officially released, the Studio's now come with Ventura.
But again, for them, Monterey was "the ORIGINAL OS"...

 

[Corefile]

I would love to have a touchscreen Mac mini.

Agreed. It would be a revolutionary product.