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macdame

macrumors newbie
Original poster
hi, i've been looking at macbooks on ebay to replace my trusty and faithful powerbook g4. i've found several macbooks w/ a lot of features i like but the ones in my price range have tiger as the operating system. my g4 has leopard on it so i want to update my new companion to the best it can be. so my question is can i update something from tiger straight to snow leopard and skip leopard. any advice is much appreciated🙂
 
Technically, yes. Legally, no.

I don't know where this comes from. The Snow Leopard retail box for EUR 29 and its accompanying license NOWHERE say that you need to have Leopard installed or own a copy of Leopard to be eligible to install Snow Leopard.

So why is everybody repeating this false information?

The EUR 29 Snow Leopard box is a full RETAIL version (as is clearly printed on the box), NOT an upgrade or update. And since it is NOT an upgrade, you do NOT need a previous Mac OS X operating system. And the EULA does NOT state anything otherwise.

Apple's marketing department tries to sell you a "Mac Desktop Set", sure. But there are no license restrictions in the Snow Leopard-only box that would make it actually necessary to purchase the Desktop box.

So, yes, you can go directly from Tiger to Snow Leopard, both technically AND legally.
 
Fair enough, I stand corrected. I just read the relevant sections in Apple's EULA and compared them with what's written online (not on Apple's site). That indeed doesn't match. I always assumed you needed to have bought Leopard before being allowed to run Snow Leopard, since many reviews stated so. Well, now I know that's not true.

So yes, macdame, it's perfectly fine for you to get a Snow Leopard disc and use it on your MacBook.
 
hi, i've been looking at macbooks on ebay to replace my trusty and faithful powerbook g4. i've found several macbooks w/ a lot of features i like but the ones in my price range have tiger as the operating system. my g4 has leopard on it so i want to update my new companion to the best it can be. so my question is can i update something from tiger straight to snow leopard and skip leopard. any advice is much appreciated🙂

Yep, all you need is a new disc!

Habitus :apple:
 
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