advice on Mojave upgrade?

[Eric Brody]

Does anyone know if Mojave will still be available as an upgrade once Catalina is released? If not, I might upgrade to Mojave now to delay solving the 32 bit app problem. Like many photographers, I tend to stay a bit behind with OS upgrades. My 2013 Mac Pro is currently happily running High Sierra. Catalina will no longer run 32 bit apps, not a problem for Lightroom and Photoshop, but an issue with Microsoft Office 2011. 32 bit apps do run currently on Mojave.

Thanks for any advice on this issue.

Eric

[Joe Towner]

It'll be around, but if you wanted to get ahead of it, you can download the software now & not install it (it'll just be a 6gb file in your Applications).  You can also make a install disk with https://diskmakerx.com and tuck it away for future use.

-Joe

[Eric Brody]

Thanks Joe, that sounds like a good, safe idea.

Eric

[BobShaw]

Basically what Joe said. All of the operating system are on the Apple website but why risk it. Download now. I just drag a copy onto a USB stick.

I always update after everyone else has fixed an operating system so have only just gone to Mojave. No real issues.

I have used VMware Fusion for some time. It costs about $50AU and lets you run one operating system under another. I have a 2001 version of Macromedia Dreamweaver running under OS10.6 for example under Mojave. You can run Windows and even the same operating system. So I have High Sierra running under Mojave.

Apart from Aperture (64bit but killed by Catalina) I have an MYOB accounting programme and other essential stuff to consider that is all 32 bit.

It will be interesting how this plays out.

[Eric Brody]

Related question... Should I purchase a new machine with Catalina in the near future, will I be able to use the installer to "downgrade" that machine to Mojave?

[kers]

Related question... Should I purchase a new machine with Catalina in the near future, will I be able to use the installer to "downgrade" that machine to Mojave?

Probably not- the new hardware will not be supported by the older system

[Joe Towner]

+1 to Pieter - If it's the current hardware platform, then it should be fine (it'll ship with Catalina, but will run Mojave fine). If it's a newer hardware ID then you're running a unsupported hardware risk.

[Eric Brody]

Thanks to all for the thoughtful replies. I did upgrade my 2013 Mac Pro and 2016 MacBook Pro to Mojave but only after making two backup each of the SSD in case I want to go back. It seems to be running satisfactorily so far, a couple of permission issues and a few warnings about 32bit applications in the future.
Eric

[langier]

I upgraded to Mojave on my MacBook to make sure most of what I need & use worked fine and including MS Office 2011, everything works fine. You get a "warning" that some apps won't work in the next OS update and to check with the developer but I think most of it is just to get you on the upgrade train...

For my main system, I took a spare drive and cloned my system before I updated to Mojave to see what issues I may encounter since I keep different apps on it. Since I've still on several projects, I haven't had a chance to try everything, but most of my software seemed compatible. When my plate is cleared from these projects in a month or so, I'll be able to take the time to test Mojave more on my ancient MacPro 5.1 that's been upgraded extensively in the ten years I've used it, but at least in my limited testing, it seems to work fine with nearly all of my key applications so far.

If you have a spare drive (they are dirt cheap!), clone your system, upgrade it to Mojave, then give it a try to see what works for you.

[Eric Brody]

Lloyd Chambers wrote an excellent piece on the potential problems with OSX Catalina.

https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2019/20190906_2100-macOS-SoftwareUpdate-preferences.html

Lloyd is often spot on with his aggressive criticisms of Apple hardware and software even if he comes off as a bit strident. I've never quite understood the folks who update software the moment it's available, eg iOS 13. They seem to be asking for problems and rarely really need the alleged improvements. But, to each his own.
I agree with and always do what Larry Angier suggests about using a spare drive, cloning the system and running from that until one is happy that things like printers and older software work in a satisfactory fashion.
Eric

[rdonson]

Really?  32 bit apps no longer running is a HUGE problem?   How did Lloyd survive from 8 bit to 16 bit to 32 bit?  Wow those must have been gut wrenching!!!  I guess Apple only told a gazillion people about this coming for how long, 2 years, 3 years?

Be a good curmudgeon and don't upgrade......   Oh yeah, don't upgrade iOS or move to iPadOS either.   Or Android or.... Windows... or Linux.....

For the record most people do wait for the .1 or .2 release before upgrading their OS because its prudent.  Wait for the reviews, etc.    Also, Apple can release security updates without a .x release.

[BobShaw]

I think that “cloning” a drive is a complete waste of time. If you change machines then it probably won’t work because the hardware is different. If you do a Time Machine backup then you just have to buy another machine and restore from the backup and you are back on the air same day with your original OS, users, settings, applications and data. I have done this many times. Yes 32 bits may be a problem if you have business critical applications like accounts that won’t run. There are usually  ways around though.

[Joe Towner]

Cloned disks are great in that you can boot off them externally, rather than having to do a OS install then restore from a Time Machine backup.  Both have their place for a workflow & either are great for restoring a computer after a crash.

For apps that are 32bit only, it's worth doing a Mac-in-a-Mac using either VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop.  Then you get a legacy OS within your current OS, legacy apps running where they're happy.

[BobShaw]

Cloned disks are great in that you can boot off them externally, rather than having to do a OS install then restore from a Time Machine backup.  Both have their place for a workflow & either are great for restoring a computer after a crash.

Usually you only have to do CMD-R and then you can restore. If that doesn't work then either way you need to reinstall the OS. You can boot from any OS usb stick.

Both clones and Time Machine as only as good as when they were taken. How old is you're clone? Time Machine for me is only an hour old because you can leave it running in the background. They both take a long time to make the first time, but Time Machine allows incremental updates which take virtually no time. Clones take the same amount of down time to make every time which is why there is a reluctance to make them. When you need a backup it is too old. A clone a month old is a lot of lost information.

The other great thing is that you can restore a Time Machine backup onto any Mac. I just restored my 2013 iMac onto a 2019 MacBook. Both are still in use but they are essentially the same computer now.

[Eric Brody]

This thread may be veering off the original topic but what I do for backup is clone my startup disk every night with Carbon Copy Cloner. The incremental backups are quite quick though I don't care since I'm sleeping at 3AM when it happens. That way in a worst case scenario, I'll lose a day's work, not great, but acceptable, given all the money I earn with my photography :-). I also have a Time Machine backup to another disk. These and my RAID housing my photos are in OWC Thunderbays. I clone the last three years of photos from the RAID to a single disk every night as well. I keep a complete set of photo files and a backup of the startup disk offsite too. And... I use Backblaze. I think I'm covered though one may argue whether any of my photos are worth all this hassle. But once it's set up, it's pretty automatic. I detect a bit of understandable sarcasm in Ron's comment re Lloyd and the 8-16-32 bit apps. I'm just lazy and cheap. I could just switch my fairly simple Excel 2011 spreadsheets to Numbers and be done with it but I've used Excel for so many years... and I'd rather not invest $$$ in another version of Excel. Ah progress (?)

[BFD]

Does anyone know if Mojave will still be available as an upgrade once Catalina is released? If not, I might upgrade to Mojave now to delay solving the 32 bit app problem. Like many photographers, I tend to stay a bit behind with OS upgrades. My 2013 Mac Pro is currently happily running High Sierra. Catalina will no longer run 32 bit apps, not a problem for Lightroom and Photoshop, but an issue with Microsoft Office 2011. 32 bit apps do run currently on Mojave.

Thanks for any advice on this issue.

Eric

I've been running Mojave on my 2013 Mac Pro with no known issues for about 6 months now.

[digitaldog]

Really?  32 bit apps no longer running is a HUGE problem?

Yes! I have software that still works fine, that originally cost THOUSANDS of dollars that will never be updated to run 64-bit. That's a HUGE problem for me and others.

[BJL]

There are several ways to check for 32-bits apps on macOS, beyond the obvious one of paying attention to those notices that pop up when you run a 32-bit apps (because some app lurk unused for a long time)

A list can be got in the utility System Information:
- Either start that from the folder Utilities, or go to About This Mac under the apple icon and from there click on System Report.
- In System Information go down to Software and within that list, Applications.
- After a while, that spins up a list all applications and at right there is a column 64-bit (Intel).
- Click on that column and it sorts with all the "No"s at top: there's you TO DO list.

A lot are harmless, waiting on a "Just In Time" update (or "Almost In Time"; a bunch came this Fall). Apple itself has stuff in High Sierra still in 32-bit form. And a lot of the rest it is just a matter of opening the app and running its "Check for Updates".
The most common serious offenders for me (with NO updates that I can find) are software that is ancillary to a now discontinued hardware item: printer stuff, photo editing software that came with a camera, my Garmin GPS, etc.

There is a second list that may be more human-readable but seems only to include items that have been opened recently enough: under that heading Software go down to Legacy Software.