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macstatic

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 21, 2005
2,011
163
Norway
I recently bought a mid-2012 Macbook Pro 9,2 which came pre-installed with OSX 10.9 Mavericks (it's further been upgraded to 10.9.4), but I need to run some software which only runs under Snow Leopard.
I was hoping I could just pop in the 10.6 installation DVD (boxed DVD with OSX 10.6.3) to boot from, then run the software, but no go.

I am able to chose the OSX 10.6 DVD from the "Startup disk" system preference, but after restarting all I get is the black Apple logo in the middle of the screen which just stays there. After several minutes of no progress I've had to press and hold down the power button in order to move on.
So what's the deal? Isn't it possible to run 10.6 on my MacBook Pro or am I doing something wrong?
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
You cannot natively run 10.6 on that machine. The best thing you can do is run Snow Leopard Server in a virtual machine. It can be purchased from Apple for $20.
 

macstatic

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 21, 2005
2,011
163
Norway
Is there a way I can run it through my 2010 Mac Pro (which has 10.6.8 installed)?

I'm not sure what a Snow Leopard server in a virtual machine is but I suppose it's some sort of emulator. So the software I need to buy from Apple is basically a different installation of OSX 10.6 and the installation DVD I have is useless for this?
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
There is no way to run it via the Mac Pro. A virtual machine is like a computer in a bottle that runs on top of your current operating system. Snow Leopard Server is the server edition of Snow Leopard. The three virtual machine programs, VirtualBox, Parallels Desktop, and VMWare Fusion, will only allow the server edition of Snow Leopard to be installed.
 
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