Yosemite Downloads

General
1

I am trying to download the Yosemite installer so that I can install 10.10 in a VM under Parallels for some testing. After finally figuring out that older OSX versions are on Apple Dev site and newer ones are in the Mac App Store, I finally found it. But when I click on the download button, it just says “Downloading”. No indication of whether it is downloading the installer file that I can use elsewhere (as in Parallels) or whether it is trying to update my host 10.9.5 OS. There is also no download indicator, like you get in Downloads when I download something directly in Safari. So I have no idea if it is downloading, upgrading, stuck, slow. I have no idea other than it is “Downloading”.

Can someone please tell me where I can get this file? I tried this about 2 months ago and just gave up for similar reasons. it REALLY shouldn’t be this difficult.

2

I don’t remember where the download is going to. Grab “Find any file” from Thomas Tempelmann and looks for recently created files.

And make a copy of the download when finished so that you don’t have to download it again.

3

Thanks. After poking around some , I think it is going in to Applications. Seems like an incredibly odd place to put something that is “Downloading”. I’d say that 999 out of 1000 people might think that would go into “Downloads”. It finally finished downloading, now tells me to click continue to install. That is not what I want, I do not want to upgrade my host machine. And there is no Back button or way to quit, the Red quit button is inactive. So I had to kill the file and now the download is removed from Applications.

4

I contacted support and they will talk to me once… for $29.

5

App Store App. It should be under “Purchases” with a download button beside it.

I have Lion, ML, Mavericks, Yosemite under my “Purchses” tab.

When it is downloaded then copy it to another location.

6

Thanks, Marcus let me try that, it is about 2/3 done downloading now. I assume you mean copy it out of the Downloads folder?

On the Tech Support end, I got a Tech that didn’t need to charge me the $29 Support incident fee, but had to put me on hold twice for 5 minutes before coming back and saying he had no idea and needed to transfer me to a supervisor. Of course the call got disconnected when he tried to transfer me.

7

Installers for Mavericks etc do get downloaded to the app folder just like any other app your purchased and installed

You should end up with an App labelled "Install XXX " for that version

Parallels is happy to use that to set up a VM

8

It is there (“Install OS X Yosemite.app”) it is 5.73 GB and Parallels won’t use it. I was able to install 10.7 like this no problem. I am sure the file is OK, if I double click on it to run it starts the install process.

What version of Parallels do you have?

9

If you right click on it and look at the contents there should be a disk image inside of it. I think that will work with VMWare.

10

The only disk image I see is under Contents / SharedSupport and it is called InstallESD.dmg. Is that the file you are talking about? Parallels doesn’t like that either. I am running Parallels 9, maybe I need to upgrade to a newer version?

11

I don’t use Parallels but with older versions of Fusion you can just attach the InstallESD.dmg as a CD and then boot the VM which then walks you through installing the OS. Newer versions just let you drag the “Installer” app onto a new VM and it figures everything out.

12

[quote=215911:@Merv Pate]
What version of Parallels do you have?[/quote]
10

13

Thanks Paul, but doesn’t seem to work in Parallels 9. I drag the DMG onto the install area where it says to put it and it says it can’t find an O/S in DMG file. Maybe my Parallels version is too old. The nag screens say that Parallels 9 will not handle 10.11, but I thought they were talking about the Host O/S? Maybe version 9 will not handle Yosemite as well. Maybe I should upgrade and then go from there.

14

Try mounting the DMG by double-clicking it, then select it from Fusion 9 as install medium / CD.

15

I’m on Parallels, don’t have Fusion. I tried it in Parallels and it won’t accept it. I just bought and downloaded the Parallels 11 upgrade, let me see if that helps. Thanks for the Help.

16

I dont have 10.10 in a VM - I reboot my machine using an alternate start up disk
But I have installed 10.6 and 10.7 in Parallels and they just worked
And they are installers like 10.10 etc

17

I upgraded to Parallels 11 and the opening screen was now able to find the downloaded Yosemite file as an installable O/S. But when I go to install from it, it says it needs to create disk image file first, then after 30 seconds or so, I get an error from Parallels "Failed to create a bootable disk image for this version of OS X.

I could be wrong, I don’t think what I am downloading is installable, I think it is just a front end installer.

18

I think I am able to get it going. Had to right-click on downloaded .app file choose Parallels 11, then choose Downloads as the place I wanted to create the disk image, Desktop will not work for some reason. The installation seems to be going well, although I am not going to call this “done” until I am officially looking at the Yosemite desktop and cursing at the flat icons.

19

And then you can move on to installing the El Cap 10.11 GM in a VM!

20

OK, it installed, thanks for the help all. But I’d have to describe Apple’s setup for the Developers and their Tech Support as hapless. The Apple support engineer didn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about and had to go to a supervisor twice.

The ultimate solution was start the install, copy the file somewhere safe in mid-install, then kill the installer, then use that file. That’s just silly. Up until 10.7 or 10.8, these files were on the App Dev site. You simply downloaded, then installed it when you want. If Apple is going to send paying members of it’s Developer program over to the MAS to get downloads, they need to figure out that the Developers are not going to want to always install the newly downloaded O/S on the computer they are on the Mac App store with.