5 replies to this topic

[itsme2]

Hi folks,

hopefully MSoK, Donk or someone else who is knowledgeable can help me:

Currently I have Snow Leopard running fine under VMware Workstation 8.
To experience some of the new stuff of 10.7 or 10.8 (like iBooks Author) I would like to upgrade my existing VM - or fresh install a new VM with 10.7 oder 10.8 .

VMware Workstation 8 should remain intact. An upgrade to WS 9 might come in the future, but for the time being, WS 8 is the platform I use.


Question is: How easy / hard is it to upgrade my existing VM with OS X 10.6 to 10.7 or 10.8?  What type of problems I will face? Which version - 10.7 or 10.8 - is better for my VMware environment?

Your help is very appreciated.

[MSoK]

itsme2, on 12 February 2013 - 03:45 PM, said:

Hi folks,

hopefully MSoK, Donk or someone else who is knowledgeable can help me:

Currently I have Snow Leopard running fine under VMware Workstation 8.
To experience some of the new stuff of 10.7 or 10.8 (like iBooks Author) I would like to upgrade my existing VM - or fresh install a new VM with 10.7 oder 10.8 .

VMware Workstation 8 should remain intact. An upgrade to WS 9 might come in the future, but for the time being, WS 8 is the platform I use.

Question is: How easy / hard is it to upgrade my existing VM with OS X 10.6 to 10.7 or 10.8?  What type of problems I will face? Which version - 10.7 or 10.8 - is better for my VMware environment?

Your help is very appreciated.

Ideally you should upgrade to Workstation 9.0.1 as this offers the best current support for both OS X 10.7 and 10.8, while still fully supporting OS X 10.6.8, OS X 10.8.2 would be the recommendation. If you cannot upgrade and need to stay at Workstation 8, then probably best to only upgrade to OS X 10.7.5. Unless you are running ESXi in Workstation you could switch to Player 5.0.1 as it is fully functional and free, well not for commercial use anyway.

In terms of upgrade provided you are running the latest "Unlocker" 1.1.0 then you should be able to just upgrade. Having said that a few things to do first, ensure you have a reasonable amount of free space in your OS X 10.6 VM, increase the memory allocation to a minimum of 2GB. Take a snapshot and un-install VMware tools before you start the actual upgrade. Go to the App Store included in OS X 10.6.8 and purchase and download either OS X 10.7 or 10.8. At the end of the download you will have the option to install and all should progress normally. Once complete, re-install the VMware tools, run Software Update... and once you are completely happy everything is running as expected delete the snapshot.

Alternatively you can extract the DMG image from the downloaded OS X 10.7 or 10.8, Go > Applications > Install OS X Mountain Lion > Show Package Contents > SharedSupport > Copy "InstallESD.dmg" > Paste Item to Desktop. Convert to an ISO and do a fresh install, probably the safest option.

[itsme2]

Hi MSoK,

excellent - thanks a lot!
That was exactly what I was looking for.

MSoK, on 12 February 2013 - 05:31 PM, said:

Go to the App Store included in OS X 10.6.8 and purchase and download either OS X 10.7 or 10.8.

If I go to the App Store from my 10.6.8 VM-Mac, I only see the option to purchase 10.8, but not 10.7 ...  Is there a "hidden" way to still purchase 10.7 ?
Or can I chose 10.8 - with regards to running under VMware Workstation (although I tend to use 10.7 instead) ?

Quote

Alternatively you can extract the DMG image from the downloaded OS X 10.7 or 10.8, Go > Applications > Install OS X Mountain Lion > Show Package Contents > SharedSupport > Copy "InstallESD.dmg" > Paste Item to Desktop. Convert to an ISO and do a fresh install, probably the safest option.

That sound like to route I will go. I'm not quite sure if I understood everything you described ("Go > Applications > Install OS X Mountain Lion ... > Copy "InstallESD.dmg" > Paste Item to Desktop."), but I will try

[MSoK]

itsme2, on 12 February 2013 - 08:01 PM, said:

Hi MSoK,

excellent - thanks a lot!
That was exactly what I was looking for.


If I go to the App Store from my 10.6.8 VM-Mac, I only see the option to purchase 10.8, but not 10.7 ...  Is there a "hidden" way to still purchase 10.7 ?
Or can I chose 10.8 - with regards to running under VMware Workstation (although I tend to use 10.7 instead) ?


That sound like to route I will go. I'm not quite sure if I understood everything you described ("Go > Applications > Install OS X Mountain Lion ... > Copy "InstallESD.dmg" > Paste Item to Desktop."), but I will try

Glad to be of help.

Unless you want to become a Mac Developer, you will have to go with 10.8, in Workstation 8 you will have to select 10.7, the option to install 10.8 was only introduced in Workstation 9 and Player 5.

If you intend to do a fresh install, Quit the OS X 10.8 install screen that will appear once the App Store download is complete, and navigate to the relevant location of the installation package, i.e. click on Go in the top menu bar and follow the menu structure as described in my original post (remember to right click on the Install OS X Mountain Lion to get the option to Show Package Contents). Once you have the .dmg file on your OS X desktop you can convert it to an ISO as follows.

Open a terminal session (Go > Utilites > Terminal) you should get a $ prompt, navigate to your desktop:
(please be aware as OS X is based on BSD Unix, everything is case sensitive)

(<machine_name>:~ <username>$ cd Desktop

Then you can use the following command on you Mac or your virtual instance of OS X at the $ prompt:

hdiutil convert InstallESD.dmg -format UDTO -o InstallESD

Although this creates a .CDR file this can simply be renamed to .ISO it will ask for confirmation to change the extension.

Alternatively copy the DMG file on to a Windows machine using "VMware Shared Folders" locally or File Sharing and use MagicISO or ImgBurn to convert the .DMG file to an ISO.

If you are new to all this, I am sure we can guide you through the process, we have done it many times before.
Good luck, MSoK.

[itsme2]

MSoK, on 13 February 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

Unless you want to become a Mac Developer, you will have to go with 10.8, in Workstation 8 you will have to select 10.7, the option to install 10.8 was only introduced in Workstation 9 and Player 5.

Sounds reasonable. I used Donk's Unlocker 1.1.0 for my VMware Workstation 8, so this will allow selection OS X up to version 10.7 - got it .

Quote

If you intend to do a fresh install

Yes, this seems better than performing an upgrade.

But: Will I face any problems (maybe from Apple), if I use my OS X 10.6 VM and my existing Apple ID for purchasing OS X 10.8 in the App Store, then create an ISO file from that and do a fresh install of OS X 10.8 on "another" Mac (in my case, another VM) ?

Quote

If you are new to all this, I am sure we can guide you through the process, we have done it many times before.

Thank you very much for all your detailed explanations and your kind support. I really appreciate that.

This is my first time although I'm not totally new since I read several times about and - but now I like to practice

[MSoK]

itsme2, on 13 February 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

But: Will I face any problems (maybe from Apple), if I use my OS X 10.6 VM and my existing Apple ID for purchasing OS X 10.8 in the App Store, then create an ISO file from that and do a fresh install of OS X 10.8 on "another" Mac (in my case, another VM) ?

Since you are running OS X on a Windows PC (non Apple hardware) using VMware Workstation and Donk / Zenith's Unlocker, you are already outside Apple's EULA. Looking on the bright side at least you are purchasing a legal copy of OS X 10.8, and no it will install just fine in a new Virtual Machine.