Moving to new MBP, want High Sierra

[vader1990]

Hi all,

I know there are a lot of threads and articles on this online, but no one seems to have answered my question directly.

I have a MB running High Sierra. I just got a new MBP. I have an up-to-date TM backup of my MB. I suspect there are programs on my MB that don’t play nice with Mojave.

I WANT to just have my MBP be exactly the same (software wise) as my MB. So all my apps, settings, OS, etc should just be on my MBP.

How do I do this? I’ve screwed this up every single time in the past and dealt with the consequences of the newer OS and the headaches involved with trying to work out compatibility issues. I’m committed to doing this correctly this time. I think my new MBP comes with Mojave (I haven’t opened it yet). So how do I transfer or migrate or whatever using my TM backup such that I don’t end up with Mojave.

Thanks all!

 

[Stephen.R]

I suspect there are programs on my MB that don’t play nice with Mojave.

Wouldn't it be easier to just work out what those issues are?

How do I do this?

I doubt you can, and almost certainly not well.

 

[treekram]

First, I would agree with the previous poster that you try to work out the issues your software is having with Mojave.

That, being said, it may be possible to run High Sierra on these new 2019 MBP's. The identifiers "MacBookPro15,1" and "A1990" for the 15" models did not change between the 2018 and 2019 models. Also, on everymac.com, it says the build version of Mojave on the macOS pre-installed on these MBP's are the same as the standard 10.14.5 release. If this is correct, the 10.14.5 release came on May 13, the MBP was announced on May 21, 2019. If there was something different that needed to be in Mojave to accommodate the new models, people would have spotted that on May 13 and reported it but nobody did so that also indicates that there's probably nothing new in the OS for these MBP's.

However, Apple may nevertheless made it so the new MBP's that won't allow High Sierra. If this is important to you, I would suggest trying to install High Sierra - you can try the install on an external HDD. You'd have to relax the security protections to allows this (for Secure Boot, I would select "Medium Security").
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198

Since this question doesn't seem to be addressed, if you try this, please report back on your results.

 

[Bending Pixels]

The updated 2019 MBP will run macOS Mojave or later only. It will not natively run High Sierra

I'm assuming the comparability issues you're referring to are legacy software that's still 32 bit. That's the reality for software developers. They either need to port their software to 64bit or face the music.

 

[vader1990]

Thanks everyone. It appears it is as I feared. Sigh.

Okay, I will spend tomorrow trying to make sure all my critical software can run on Mojave. Just to be crystal clear. I plan to do the following:

- Make a TM backup of my current MB.
- Upgrade to Mojave.
- Get any and all software updates.
- Test my software throughly.
- See what can be done re incompatibilities.
- Then, make a new TM backup of the MB with Mojave.
- Finally, when booting up the new MBP restore using that new TM backup?

Does this sound correct?
Thanks again for all your help! 🙂

 

[NoBoMac]

Probably won't be able to install HS due to as a general rule, cannot load anything older than the OS that came with the unit.

If don't want to work out the other software issues, might try going the virtualization route: run HS via Parallels/VMware/VirtualBox.

Oh and: sounds like a good plan re: steps to do before getting the new Mac.

 

[treekram]

UPDATE: Forgot about the Vega. The Vega models did require new drivers only available in Mojave (10.14.2 or the special 10.14.1 builds) so if you have a Vega model, that definitely won't run High Sierra.