Mac Mini 2012 made in 2014 can't install El Capitan ???

[4sallypat]

I have a 2012 Mac Mini i7 Server CTO and can't install El Capitan either from boot USB or upgraded from Yosemite.

The original OS that came with the Mini was Yosemite due to to the 2014 manufacture date.
Yosemite works perfectly installed from Internet Recovery mode.

I keep getting this El Cap message even after changing the date via Terminal command to 2016 - anyone help ?

 

[mwidjaya]

changing the date via Terminal command to 2016

People have success with mid 2017 system date.


Any reason not to go for Mojave? That is stable and would run well on the 2012 mini.

 

[4sallypat]

People have success with mid 2017 system date.


Any reason not to go for Mojave? That is stable and would run well on the 2012 mini.

Ah, I will try 2017 date.

As for El Cap, I have the old Adobe CS4 suite and it's an installer with keycode ( I know - old prehistoric software before subscription based monthly cloud based services)

 

[mwidjaya]

As for El Cap, I have the old Adobe CS4 suite

Ah, I see.

There are some chatter on Adobe forums that CS4 will run on Mojave but the way to do it is via older OS like El Cap.

Meaning, do what you are doing. Once you have CS4 running smoothly, you can upgrade macOS to Mojave and it will remain working.

Re: Installing Photoshop CS4 on Mac OS Mojave version 10.14.2

I recently updated my operating system to mojave and CS4 design standard (illustrator + photoshop + all the other programs) STILL WORKS on my mac book pro. this suggests that if you first install an old mac operating system, then install CS4 whatever, then update the operating system, you could...

community.adobe.com