Mac OS Yosemite: downgrade a new-to-me machine to Mavericks?

http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/22/downgrade-os-x-yosemite-to-mavericks/

Thanks but that’s an example of what I can’t use—it says ” To downgrade back to OS X Mavericks from Yosemite, you absolutely must have a recent Time Machine backup made from OS X Mavericks – this is not optional using this specific technique.”

Instead of wiping out the Yosemite install, I would run a separate copy of Mavericks in a virtual machine.

VirtualBox is free software for doing that.

This page has instructions for creating a Maverick virtual machine on a Windows computer, but mostly it would apply to Mac OS, too.

How to install OS X Mavericks in Virtualbox with Niresh

If you can find anyone who has a copy of Mavericks in their app store (basically anyone who used it) then you can make a bootable USB stick from that.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

I wouldn’t downgrade, even if you could. It never seems to work out quite as advertised and probably better to just start fresh.

Wow, thank you, I had not thought about running a VM. The virtualbox site only shows screenshots of the VMs running in small windows—I assume they also could run fullscreen or nearly fullscreen if you want?

Yes, you can run the VM full-screen.

I forgot to mention – is your application for video? Because Virtualbox emulates a low-end video card. I wouldn’t use it for an audio or video application.

Oof, thank you for letting me know—no special graphics demands, but it is a moderately processor-intensive audio app. :(

It would be worth some Googling to see if others have tried it. The VM gets real access to the processor. That’s not emulated. The video is.

Cool, thank you.

This is now resolved because I found a better deal on a machine with Mavericks, but I really appreciate the help (and may check out virtualbox for other needs later).