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Mac Pro forced obsolescence

A

andrewd

pfm Member
Hi all, I know theres a few IT experts here, so hoping someone can help me with an apple issue.

I have a Mac Pro from 2009, which has been upgraded with 32Gb ram. It was quite an expensive machine so I was hoping to get a long service life out of it. It is still very fast and responsive to opening apps etc.

It has El Capitan software but apple have blocked me from upgrading the software any further, even though I am sure the machine could handle later versions. This is starting to create many problems, for example I can’t get a working Raw converter for my Nikon Z6. I have a full license of Adobe CS6 on the machine which I would prefer not to lose access to. It wont even open the dmg file of the latest Z6 firmware (previous version was fine).

Are there any work-arounds to install a later mac OS on the machine?
 
You can kludge newer macOS versions onto older unsupported machines, whether it’s worth the risk and whether it will screw any of your current stuff up is anyones guess, so make sure you have at least 2 backups on 2 different devices like a USB disk and a NAS, TimeCapsule or Cloud.

Nowt to do with me and I am sure there a lots of sites/geeks who have documented how to do this

macOS Catalina Patcher
The easy way to run macOS Catalina on your Unsupported Mac
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Mohave
http://dosdude1.com/mojave/

Gus
 
Andrew,

What converter are you using to open raw files from your Z6?

Joe
 
The biggest issue is going to be your graphics card probably not having Metal support. I'm still on a 2010 Mac Pro on High Sierra here with the odd Mac mini for newer OS.
 
El Capitan was the last OS X since when Apple moved to macOS and APFS and has been gradually unifying macOS and iOS so that they can move away from Intel and onto the ARM platform. Before contemplating a move to macOS you need to check whether your applications will still run in macOS as many don't. I have had to down grade one Mac Mini back to High Sierra as some of my applications won't run in Mojave and I don't see the point paying again for newer versions of the software when the old does exactly what I want.

If you need an Apple computer for your lively hood then its best to bite the bullet as your hardware is old and out of date although it still works just fine.

You could move your CS6 license onto the Windows platform and run that on a partition on your mac disk. Just a thought.

Rgds,

DV
 
Joe P said:
Andrew,

What converter are you using to open raw files from your Z6?

Joe
Click to expand...


I couldn’t find any converter that supports the Z6 and El Capitan OS. It is very frustrating. If you know of one please let me know. I do raw conversion in camera for the best images and then save the NEF files for the future when I can find a solution.
 
Andrew,

I’m in the same place, as my iMac is ancient. But I was able to download Nikon’s own raw converter and it works. I prefer the raw converter in photoshop, but my version — PS CS6 — is too old to support the latest raw plugin.

Joe
 
Darth Vader said:
El Capitan was the last OS X since when Apple moved to macOS and APFS and has been gradually unifying macOS and iOS so that they can move away from Intel and onto the ARM platform. Before contemplating a move to macOS you need to check whether your applications will still run in macOS as many don't. I have had to down grade one Mac Mini back to High Sierra as some of my applications won't run in Mojave and I don't see the point paying again for newer versions of the software when the old does exactly what I want.

If you need an Apple computer for your lively hood then its best to bite the bullet as your hardware is old and out of date although it still works just fine.

You could move your CS6 license onto the Windows platform and run that on a partition on your mac disk. Just a thought.

Rgds,

DV
Click to expand...


Thanks, I suspect that will be a problem for CS6, which is the main application of value that I paid the full license price for. It has all the functionality I need except that they stopped supporting new cameras in the raw converter. Again very frustrating, and I will not be rushing to give them more money.

How would I go about moving the CS6 license to Windows? Would I need to contact Adobe?

Another solution would be to get the free Nikon raw converter on a windows partition. How painful/expensive is it to make a Windows 10 installation on the Mac? I did this years ago with Windows XP.

I don’t need the machine for professional purposes, I bought it for my photography hobby. In hindsight it was probably a stupid idea to get a Mac Pro.
 
Joe P said:
Andrew,

I’m in the same place, as my iMac is ancient. But I was able to download Nikon’s own raw converter and it works. I prefer the raw converter in photoshop, but my version — PS CS6 — is too old to support the latest raw plugin.

Joe
Click to expand...

Interesting, which Mac Os are you running? Last time I looked at the Nikon site it said that it was not possible to install the raw converter because my Os was not supported.
 
andrewd said:
Thanks, I suspect that will be a problem for CS6, which is the main application of value that I paid the full license price for. It has all the functionality I need except that they stopped supporting new cameras in the raw converter. Again very frustrating, and I will not be rushing to give them more money.

How would I go about moving the CS6 license to Windows? Would I need to contact Adobe?

Another solution would be to get the free Nikon raw converter on a windows partition. How painful/expensive is it to make a Windows 10 installation on the Mac? I did this years ago with Windows XP.
Click to expand...

No idea about the issues with your machine/upgrade etc but installing a windows partition on a mac is simple, must be cause if I can do it anyone can, you just use bootcamp but do a google search or youtube search there's plenty of videos/info out there.

BTW there's no cost to installing Windows 10 on a Mac.
 
Andrew,

I'm running OS X 10.12.6. I think Apple calls that version El Captain Kirk or something.

The Nikon software is Capture NX-D, version 1.5.3. It will open Z6 raw files.

Joe
 
My old Mac Pro was caught in the bottlneck. It wouldn't dowload system software that had to run on dual Intel chips. So I got myself a Mac Mini, put in a SSD and installed the latest OSX.

The Mini is running Mojave 10.14.6 and I will install Catalina at some point. The Mini and SSD combination will hopefully allow me to install each software update until Apple move from Intel to the Arm platform.

It was definitely a lot cheaper than buying a new Mac Pro. I might get one of those at a later point though.

Jack
 
Joe P said:
Andrew,

I'm running OS X 10.12.6. I think Apple calls that version El Captain Kirk or something.

The Nikon software is Capture NX-D, version 1.5.3. It will open Z6 raw files.

Joe
Click to expand...

I just tried again to download and install Nx-D and I get an error message that it needs High Sierra
 
jackbarron said:
My old Mac Pro was caught in the bottlneck. It wouldn't dowload system software that had to run on dual Intel chips. So I got myself a Mac Mini, put in a SSD and installed the latest OSX.

The Mini is running Mojave 10.14.6 and I will install Catalina at some point. The Mini and SSD combination will hopefully allow me to install each software update until Apple move from Intel to the Arm platform.

It was definitely a lot cheaper than buying a new Mac Pro. I might get one of those at a later point though.

Jack
Click to expand...

Yes I had thought of that, but still a fair bit of money to throw at the problem when I have a perfectly good machine. I suppose I could keep an eye out for used mac mini.
 
andrewd said:
Yes I had thought of that, but still a fair bit of money to throw at the problem when I have a perfectly good machine. I suppose I could keep an eye out for used mac mini.
Click to expand...

I got myself a Mac Mini 2012 for a reasonable price, installed 16 gigs of RAM and put in the SSD. This came to approximately £400. I wish I'd put in a 2TB SSD rather than a 1TB one though.

Jack
 
andrewd said:
Yes I had thought of that, but still a fair bit of money to throw at the problem when I have a perfectly good machine. I suppose I could keep an eye out for used mac mini.
Click to expand...
I would be very careful about buying any Mac Mini until you have researched the problem very thoroughly. I speak as someone who has six of them of varying vintage (up to a late 2014 model) - each with their own peculiarities.

The oldest is an Intel version of the first type (the lunchbox model) - I keep it because it's the only one that will still run native Nikon software for my Nikon film scanner. I can use alternative software with up-to-date drivers but the results are quite frankly not on the same level.

The rest are all the 'flat lunch box' type. Most will run Windows 10 but the earliest (from 2010) was nobbled by Apple to only run Windows 7 - it will also not upgrade past High Sierra. I did find workarounds to get it to run the 32 bit version of Win 10 but it was not great.

The newer ones (2012 and 2014) are currently running Mojave but unfortunately running Bootcamp is a complete pain in the behind and I ended up installing Win10 on its own internal disk and then adding Bootcamp support - that worked fine with the exception of on the 2014 model which is complicated by the presence of the NVME drive Apple introduced.

I can give more details if needed ;¬>
 
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What about something really cheap like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B081DR8CVN/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

The only purpose would be to install Capture NX-D to convert the raw files, and then work on them on the Mac Pro with existing Adobe CS-6. Would it be up to the job? It seems to meet the minimum requirements for Nx-D and cheaper than buying a Windows 10 license for a boot camp installation ( and probably a lot less stress)
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
... Windows 10 is now a free download from the MS site .......(32 and 64 bit versions available last time I looked)
 
andrewd said:
Thanks, I suspect that will be a problem for CS6, which is the main application of value that I paid the full license price for. It has all the functionality I need except that they stopped supporting new cameras in the raw converter. Again very frustrating, and I will not be rushing to give them more money.

How would I go about moving the CS6 license to Windows? Would I need to contact Adobe?

Another solution would be to get the free Nikon raw converter on a windows partition. How painful/expensive is it to make a Windows 10 installation on the Mac? I did this years ago with Windows XP.

I don’t need the machine for professional purposes, I bought it for my photography hobby. In hindsight it was probably a stupid idea to get a Mac Pro.
Click to expand...
The cost is free to low and the pain may be none as ever it depends.

I can walk you through when you are ready but first check that you have enough space on your disk. I should add that the oldest Mac that I have installed a Windows 10 Pro installation on is 2010 thats just in case we hit a 'funny'. Go into Disk Utility and click on Partition and then click on the '+' sign. Read the value in the size box then hit cancel. We need 30GB or so for a meaningful Windows installation. I've never had the need for bootcamp as Win 10 installs and runs in its own partition. I have Snow Leopard server and Win 10 Pro running on a 2010 Mac Mini without any problems to date. I installed Windows from an old Win 10 Pro DVD that I made a few years ago.

As has been mentioned you can download a Windows iso from the M$ web site for free and even install and run Windows without a license but you'll get a nag bottom right of screen. You can always purchase a license later for a fiver or so over the web.

As for changing the CS6 license see here https://community.adobe.com/t5/down...atform-from-mac-to-windows/m-p/9771146?page=1

Cheers,

DV
 
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