how to upgrade mac os x snow leopard to lion for free 2017

Snow Leopard To Lion 2017 Software License You Agree

Create a bootable Lion-installer drive using the instructions in How to make a bootable Lion install disk or drive.

As I explained in Installing Lion: What you need to know, one of the requirements for installing Lion is that you already have Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) version 10.6.6 or later installed.

The main practical reason for this requirement is that Lion is available only via the Mac App Store, and the Mac App Store debuted in Mac OS X 10.6.6.

In other words, you need Snow Leopard just to purchase and download Lion.

But once youve got your copy of Lion, can you install it onto a Mac or a hard drive containing Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5).

Snow Leopard To Lion 2017 Software License You Agree

The software license you agree to when you install Lion states that you can download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use, one (1) copy of Lion directly on each Apple-branded computer running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server.that you own or control.

In other words, if your Mac shipped with Snow Leopard, you can install Lion on it.

If your Mac shipped with Leopard, but you later purchased Snow Leopard for, and installed it on, that Mac, you can install Lion on it.

But what if, for example, youve got a family-pack license for Snow Leopard, and youve got a Mac that shipped with Leopard but that you never upgraded to Snow Leopard Assuming that Mac is compatible, the Lion license agreement says you cant upgrade to Lion until you first install Snow Leopard.

Having performed this two-step upgrade many times while researching our various Lion-installation articles, I can tell you that its a real hassle.).

While the letter of the law says you need to install Snow Leopard before installing Lion, the spirit of the law seems to be that a particular Mac just needs a license for Snow Leopard before you can install Lion on it.

So then the question becomes whether there are any technical reasons you cant install Lion over Leopard.

Based on our testing, the Lion installer refuses to install Lion onto a drive containing Leopard (10.5); in fact, it refuses to install on any drive running a version of Mac OS X below 10.6.6.

It will, however, install onto a blank drive, so Lion clearly doesnt need any of Snow Leopards files or settings.

You may be thinking, It will install onto a blank drive Then Ill just copy the installer to my Leopard-equipped Mac, connect an empty hard drive, install Lion there, and then use Migration Assistant to move my files over to it.

Alas, while the Lion installer will freely install Lion onto a blank drive, the installer itself must be run from within Snow Leopard or Lion.

So how can you install Lion over Leopard There are three ways: the official way, the brute-force method, and the quick-but-techie way.

Whichever method you choose, you shouldas with any OS installationbe sure to have an up-to-date, tested backup of your drive before you begin.

As I explained above, Apples official policy is that if you want to install Lion onto a Mac or a hard drive containing Leopardassuming, of course, the Mac in question meets Lions system requirements you must first intall Snow Leopard and then install Lion.

This works, its fairly easy to doif a bit time-consumingand it gets the Apple seal of approval.

What if you dont want to install Snow Leopard first, or if you dont have your Snow Leopard disc handy (Im not being coy hereperhaps youve misplaced it, or maybe youre on the road and youve got your Macs original Leopard disc with you as an emergency boot disc, but you dont have your Snow Leopard upgrade disc.).

As I mentioned above, the Lion installer will let you install Lion onto a bare drive when the installer itself is run under Snow Leopard or Lion.

So as long as you have a good backup; a 4GB-or-larger thumb drive or external drive; and either access to a Mac running Snow Leopard or Lion, or an already downloaded copy of the Lion installer, you can perform a bit of installer razzle-dazzle.

You just erase your Macs drive, install Lion onto it, and then import all your data from your backup.

If this sounds a lot like a clean install, thats because its essentially the same process.) Heres are the steps to take.

Make sure you have an up-to-date backupeither a Time Machine backup or a clone backup using a utility such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner of your Leopard Macs hard drive.

For this purpose, I recommend a clone.) Be sure to test this backup to verify that it has your latest data: In the case of a Time Machine backup, try restoring some important data from the backup; in the case of a clone backup, boot from the clone to make sure it boots and that it contains all your data.

Use the Snow Leopard or Lion computer to download the Lion installer from the Mac App Store.

How To Upgrade Mac Os X Snow Leopard To Lion For Free 2017