Upgrading my friend from Leopard to Mountain Lion?

[alexjholland]

Hey

My friend has a unibody Macbook Pro 13" running Leopard, which he says is barely useable now as it's so slow.

My older, technically slower Macbook White is razor-sharp still, with 4Gb RAM; a hybrid 768Gb/SSD drive and the latest Mountain Lion, so I'm confident his can be too.

As well as ordering him 4 or 8Gb RAM (which the maximum his Macbook supports) I plan to get him on the latest OSX too; and tidying up his files.

I ordered him a CD for Snow Leopard, so will run that first, to get the Mac App store installed. My questions are:

- Can we skip straight from Leopard to Mountain Lion, or do we have to pay for and download Lion first? That would seem silly.

- Can I download the program file for Mountain Lion and/or Lion, so we don't have to sit around waiting hours for them to download? I have full ownership of both so can download them from the App store if there's a way to put them on USB

Any other thoughts on making this an efficient process would be appreciated.

Kind Regards

 

[simsaladimbamba]

As well as ordering him 4 or 8Gb RAM (which the maximum his Macbook supports)

8 GB RAM is the maximum RAM if it is a 2009 MBP.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

- Can we skip straight from Leopard to Mountain Lion, or do we have to pay for and download Lion first? That would seem silly.

You have to install Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, then from there you can directly download and install OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, no need for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion (it is also no longer available from the Mac App Store (MAS))

- Can I download the program file for Mountain Lion and/or Lion, so we don't have to sit around waiting hours for them to download? I have full ownership of both so can download them from the App store if there's a way to put them on USB

This might be of interest:

If you want to make a bootable installation medium, you can follow these steps:

• Lion DiskMaker

• Create bootable installation medium for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
​

As for speed, an SSD will make the most difference, maybe convince your friend to get a 120 or 256 GB SSD, 256 GB can be had for less than 200 USD nowadays.

SSD Buying Guide by Hellhammer​

 

[alexjholland]

As I'm on OSX Mountain Lion on both my Macs, it doesn't look like I have the option to download it!

Well, I can certainly load Snow Leopard; tidy his Macbook up; order RAM and start the download of Mountain Lion for him or I to finish another day.

I don't think he'll be looking to spend the cash on an SSD, especially as he has to buy a replacement battery too. I'm sure quadrupling his RAM (especially as 2Gb is so basic) will help.

I also have this inkling that there's something about updating the OS and getting fresh system files that helps too..