Will I lose my programs upgrading from OS9 to OSX?

[Willsq]

Your old applications will migrate into a folder "Applications (Mac OS 9)" within your OSX Applications folder. They won't be deleted. And, if they ran in OS9 before the upgrade, they will run in OSX under Classic, no problem. I personally run both Illustrator 7.0 and Photoshop 5.0 in Classic. Looks a little weird, but it works so well, I haven't seen a need to upgrade.

As for RAM, an upgrade couldn't hurt, but I can attest to running Tiger on an only slightly faster G4 with the same amount of RAM, and it works fine. If you're going to be using Illustrator and Photoshop often, though, that much RAM probably will get cramped in a hurry.

Great stuff. Thanks . I think I'm more or less decided in that case - OS X it is! (Once I've bought a couple of RAM sticks).

One more thing - do I buy a FULL or an UPGRADE version of OS 10.3? When it says 'Upgrade' I'm guessing it means 'upgrade from OS 10.0 or above'?

 

[michaelrjohnson]

Great stuff. Thanks . I think I'm more or less decided in that case - OS X it is! (Once I've bought a couple of RAM sticks).

One more thing - do I buy a FULL or an UPGRADE version of OS 10.3? When it says 'Upgrade' I'm guessing it means 'upgrade from OS 10.0 or above'?

Correct.

Purchase Full.

 

[Willsq]

Correct.

Purchase Full.

Thanks michaelrjohnson
Thanks to everyone else who's helped as well!!! It's much appreciated!

 

[IJ Reilly]

Thanks michaelrjohnson
Thanks to everyone else who's helped as well!!! It's much appreciated!

And a backup beforehand is recommended. Make sure you don't do an erase and install.

Tiger will be just fine, BTW. No reason to downgrade to 10.3 IMO.

 

[Willsq]

And a backup beforehand is recommended. Make sure you don't do an erase and install.

Tiger will be just fine, BTW. No reason to downgrade to 10.3 IMO.

Ah, that's good because I can't find many 10.3's on the internet and the stores have stopped selling them.
How would you advise I backup my files?

 

[Macky-Mac]

Ah, that's good because I can't find many 10.3's on the internet and the stores have stopped selling them.
How would you advise I backup my files?

you can buy OS 10.3 from Other World Computing online

 

[IJ Reilly]

Ah, that's good because I can't find many 10.3's on the internet and the stores have stopped selling them.
How would you advise I backup my files?

An external Firewire hard drive is the easiest way. With OS9 you can drag-copy everything.