Once I've purchased a new internal hard drive for my Mac Pro 4,1 to use to create a clone backup of the boot drive, and I'm satisfied that the cloning process has been successful, I want to upgrade my OS from Snow Leopard 10.6.8 to Mavericks 10.9.5.
[I'm very aware how out of date / deprecated / insecure Mavericks is compared to later OS versions, but due to the applications I need to run, going beyond Mavericks is not an option - at least not initially until I'm happy my applications all work as they should with Mavericks. Once I'm happy, and the backup drive has a fresh clone of the boot drive (containing Mavericks) I'll be able to try installing El Capitan 10.11.6. If, as I suspect from my extensive research, this causes problems, I'll be able to clone the backup drive back over the top of the boot drive, meaning I'll be back to running Mavericks again.]
Unfortunately I didn't have the foresight to download a Mavericks installer from the App Store during its active lifetime. I've been a Mac user for around 24 years, and come from an era when old versions of the OS could legitimately be bought (on disc) if needed. Sadly this isn't the case any more.
Although I'm very well aware of the risks of obtaining a Mavericks installer from illegitimate sources, after much digging around on the internet, I managed to download what appears to be the official Mavericks installer, called "Install OS X Mavericks.app".
The version of the file I have has creation & modification dates of Friday, 16 May 2014 01:47, and a size on disk of 5.34GB; specifically 5,336,322,299 bytes. The "Version:" is also listed as 1.3.42.
Starting the application up gives a result that looks legitimate. According to Little Snitch, it immediately wants to connect to swscan.apple.com over TCP port 443 (https). After clicking "Continue" on the initial welcome screen, the Licence Agreement appears (with "EA1050 Rev. 9/10/2013" as a footer) and clicking on "Agree" makes the next screen appear with "Back" and "Install" buttons. So far so good. I've always cancelled the installation at this stage.
Now I know that if I ever proceed with the install, I could end up with a malware infested, broken OS for my trouble. That's a risk I may be prepared to take. If I'm even slightly unconvinced about the install, I can always clone my Snow Leopard backup disk over the top of the boot disk, and return everything to how it was.
What would help me decide whether to proceed or not though, is if someone out there who downloaded their "Install OS X Mavericks.app" file from the App Store - completely legitimately - could check the size of the file.
If someone has a legitimate copy of the file that they can categorically say works without issue, and it, like my copy, also happens to be 5,336,322,299 bytes in size, with a Version of 1.3.42, and with "EA1050 Rev. 9/10/2013" as the footer of the EULA, then that might suggest that my copy hasn't been tampered with, and - other things being equal - is more likely to be legitimate, than if, say, legitimate copies tend to be a little smaller than my copy (which might suggest that my copy has had nasties added to the code).
So if anyone reading this that has a legitimate "Install OS X Mavericks.app" file from the App Store that they know worked fine wouldn't mind checking the size in bytes, the version number, and the EULA footer, I'd be very grateful.
Of course there's another potential issue, even if my installer is legitimate. The security certificate may have expired. See here for an explanation:
http://tidbits.com/article/16302
although a work around is apparently to temporarily set your Mac's date prior to 14 February 2016.
If for any reason my installer can't be used, then apparently by using the method described here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/download-installation-for-original-os.1958405/#post-22612529
I can download one by using the Recovery Partition on a Mac that originally shipped with Mavericks. My friend has a Mac Mini that I'm fairly certain shipped with Mavericks, so I could always approach him for help if need be.
Many thanks in advance for any relevant, sensible input anyone has.
[I'm very aware how out of date / deprecated / insecure Mavericks is compared to later OS versions, but due to the applications I need to run, going beyond Mavericks is not an option - at least not initially until I'm happy my applications all work as they should with Mavericks. Once I'm happy, and the backup drive has a fresh clone of the boot drive (containing Mavericks) I'll be able to try installing El Capitan 10.11.6. If, as I suspect from my extensive research, this causes problems, I'll be able to clone the backup drive back over the top of the boot drive, meaning I'll be back to running Mavericks again.]
Unfortunately I didn't have the foresight to download a Mavericks installer from the App Store during its active lifetime. I've been a Mac user for around 24 years, and come from an era when old versions of the OS could legitimately be bought (on disc) if needed. Sadly this isn't the case any more.
Although I'm very well aware of the risks of obtaining a Mavericks installer from illegitimate sources, after much digging around on the internet, I managed to download what appears to be the official Mavericks installer, called "Install OS X Mavericks.app".
The version of the file I have has creation & modification dates of Friday, 16 May 2014 01:47, and a size on disk of 5.34GB; specifically 5,336,322,299 bytes. The "Version:" is also listed as 1.3.42.
Starting the application up gives a result that looks legitimate. According to Little Snitch, it immediately wants to connect to swscan.apple.com over TCP port 443 (https). After clicking "Continue" on the initial welcome screen, the Licence Agreement appears (with "EA1050 Rev. 9/10/2013" as a footer) and clicking on "Agree" makes the next screen appear with "Back" and "Install" buttons. So far so good. I've always cancelled the installation at this stage.
Now I know that if I ever proceed with the install, I could end up with a malware infested, broken OS for my trouble. That's a risk I may be prepared to take. If I'm even slightly unconvinced about the install, I can always clone my Snow Leopard backup disk over the top of the boot disk, and return everything to how it was.
What would help me decide whether to proceed or not though, is if someone out there who downloaded their "Install OS X Mavericks.app" file from the App Store - completely legitimately - could check the size of the file.
If someone has a legitimate copy of the file that they can categorically say works without issue, and it, like my copy, also happens to be 5,336,322,299 bytes in size, with a Version of 1.3.42, and with "EA1050 Rev. 9/10/2013" as the footer of the EULA, then that might suggest that my copy hasn't been tampered with, and - other things being equal - is more likely to be legitimate, than if, say, legitimate copies tend to be a little smaller than my copy (which might suggest that my copy has had nasties added to the code).
So if anyone reading this that has a legitimate "Install OS X Mavericks.app" file from the App Store that they know worked fine wouldn't mind checking the size in bytes, the version number, and the EULA footer, I'd be very grateful.
Of course there's another potential issue, even if my installer is legitimate. The security certificate may have expired. See here for an explanation:
http://tidbits.com/article/16302
although a work around is apparently to temporarily set your Mac's date prior to 14 February 2016.
If for any reason my installer can't be used, then apparently by using the method described here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/download-installation-for-original-os.1958405/#post-22612529
I can download one by using the Recovery Partition on a Mac that originally shipped with Mavericks. My friend has a Mac Mini that I'm fairly certain shipped with Mavericks, so I could always approach him for help if need be.
Many thanks in advance for any relevant, sensible input anyone has.
