Effjayess Loc: NE,Pennsylvania

For photo processing I have a late 2012 27” iMac running Mojave. I never upgraded to Catalina. After looking on Apple support pages it looks as though Catalina is the last upgrade I will be able to do with this machine. I clicked on “upgrade now” just to get more details and Monterey pops up. Monterey is only compatible with 2015 machines and up. Questions: if I wanted to upgrade one last time, is Catalina still available or did I pass the window of opportunity? How do I download that rather than Monterey? And, for those of you using Catalina are you happy with it enough to recommend me doing the upgrade ? As always I thank all of you in advance who takes the time to respond. I do appreciate and value your knowledge.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

https://www.apple.com/bw/macos/catalina/
--Bob

Effjayess Loc: NE,Pennsylvania

Thank you

Quicktee Loc: Finger Lakes

there is a newer version. not sure if your Mac is compatible. Monterey is the new one just released this month....good luck.........Tom

Chadp Loc: Virginia Beach

I have a late 2012 Mac. Catalina is the last update it will accept. However, you should be able to update to it now. I have been updating all along. But I just received a substantial update for Catalina last night. So it is still being supported. I have been happy with Catalina.

SteveG Loc: Norh Carolina

Are you running any 32 bit programs? For me, Catalina stops support of 32 bit and that was the end for my Canon printer. Otherwise, no issues.

kvanhook Loc: Oriental, NC

I run Mojave. I did upgrade to Catalina and then my Microsoft Office would not function. All spreadsheets going back for years would be gone. All Word documents going back for years would be gone. Bah Humbug! I can't stand to lose a good portion of my fairly important documents because Apple wants me to "Upgrade". For me it would be a downgrade instead. Fortunately I was able to restore from a back-up and I am still running Mohave and can access my documents and spreadsheets. It's a fine kettle of beans when Apple blows Microsoft software out of the water.

Quicktee Loc: Finger Lakes

that's above my pay grade. I did notice that laminar 4 and canon DDP 4 have some issues with exporting

kvanhook Loc: Oriental, NC

I forgot---Even though I worked at H&R Block for over 40 years, I use turboTax each year for my personal return. I have been informed by the TurboTax people that I would have to "upgrade" my perfectly working iMac if I wanted to use next years program. This stuff is getting hard to stomach. Do oI have to have two computers now? One to do TurboTax and one to use the spreadsheets I have counted on for several years? Once again, with feeling, BAH HUMBUG!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Microsoft 365 is fully up to date with the latest Mac operating systems. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and OneNote all work fine, even on the M1/M1Pro/M1Max Apple Silicon architecture. Now, if you're trying to run Microsoft Office 2011, all bets are off!

32-bit apps are a thing of the past on MacOS. Thankfully, the Mac world is all 64-bit now. It makes using huge files and having lots of apps open at the same time an easy process.

If your apps are not 64-bit, it's time to upgrade them. If they are not compatible with at least Catalina, it is time to upgrade them. Operating systems older than Catalina are dangerous to use on the Internet, as Apple no longer provides many security patches for them.

Apple released their new MacBook Pro 14" and 16" laptops last week, with two new processor families in them. The M1 Macs have been out for almost a year. By the end of 2022, Apple will have their own processors in all of their Macs. Recent Intel Macs will be supported for a few years, but all Macs over seven years old are legacy machines (no longer supported).

I have a 2010 Mac Mini and a 2013 iMac, both of which run fine. But neither runs all the software I use. I keep the Mini off the Internet and use it as a media server. I keep the iMac on Catalina for my wife to use for web browsing, email, and simple tasks. Yes, it's sad they are "obsolete," but also a good thing that progress continues.

My 2020 M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever used. I'll upgrade it to MacOS 12 Monterey soon… probably at version 12.2 or 12.3. I'll let the early adopters "take the arrows in the back."

Tigger1 Loc: Surrey, BC Canada

Hi Effjayess, I have a late 2013 iMac and in late December 2019 I upgraded from Mojave to Catalina and have enjoyed complete success with the upgrade. I was never completely happy with Mojave! HOWEVER, and this is important: if you have any 32bit software loaded on your iMac, that software will no longer work if you do the upgrade to Catalina. Catalina is a complete 64bit operating system with NO 32bit compatibility! So, before making the move to Catalina, verify that all software on your current iMac is of the 64bit variety. If you have any 32bit software on your iMac, contact the manufacturer of that particular software and determine if a 64bit version is available and download and install the new 64bit version PRIOR to doing the Catalina upgrade!!!

In the interests of full disclosure my iMac hardware specs are:
Processor 3.5GHz Quad-Core Intel i7
Memory 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4 GB

Pros & Cons of the 64bit Catalina upgrade (for me):

Pros: virtually eliminated any "spinning beach ball" wait times! Faster internet searches using either "Safari" or my preferred browser "Brave".

Cons: my old legacy perfectly functional laser printer/scanner would no longer function as the printer/scanner drivers were 32bit and the hardware manufacturer was no longer supporting the machine so there was no 64bit printer or scanner driver available. Result, off to BestBuy to purchase a new laser printer/scanner. Fortunately Canon had developed a 64bit driver for my Canon PRO-100 photo colour printer so no hiccups there!

I wish you all the best.
Garth

AnotherBob

[quote=burkphoto]"Microsoft 365 is fully up to date with the latest Mac operating systems. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and OneNote all work fine, even on the M1/M1Pro/M1Max Apple Silicon architecture. Now, if you're trying to run Microsoft Office 2011, all bets are off!

32-bit apps are a thing of the past on MacOS. Thankfully, the Mac world is all 64-bit now. It makes using huge files and having lots of apps open at the same time an easy process."

Thanks so much for the clarification.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I also have a 2012 27", but I don't intend to try to force an upgrade. There are videos on YouTube about installing IOS on machines that are too old to use them.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=install+new+IOS+on+old+Macs

JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

Depends what apps you run. Mojave is the last OS which will run 32 bit apps such as Aperture and earlier Office for Mac. Catalina and later OS's just won't open these anymore. Personally I've stopped at Mojave - it ain't broke so I'm not fixing it

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

At least 15 months BEFORE Catalina was released, Apple warned us, monthly as I recall, about the older 32 bit software not going to work under the new OS. There was even the ability, with a few clicks, to see if your system was running 32 bit software. There is nothing new here folks! Best of luck.