Is it possible to go from pre-installed Mavericks to Mountain Lion on my new Macbook Pro?

I just brought a brand new MacBook Pro (mid-2012) and it came with Mavericks installed on it. The previous Mac I had before I got this one had Mountain Lion and it ran my pro tools sufficiently but now I have a better Mac and it's giving me problems: I can't go 2 minutes without it glitching, popping and distorting and having to restart it.

I need Mountain Lion again — is it possible to go from Mavericks to Mountain Lion?

Solution 1:

According to Apple, you should not install previous versions of OS X than the version that came with your Mac. Since your Mac came with Mavericks, you should not install Mountain Lion. But if you want ML, then it may be possible with the following caveats.

Both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs ship with a certain version of Mac OS X (or Mac OS X Server) on their installation disc(s). You should not install a version of Mac OS X earlier than that which came with your Mac.

If you install an earlier (previous) version of the Mac OS X than what was included, your computer may exhibit unexpected behavior such as:

• The trackpad or mouse may not respond properly
• The computer may stop responding
• Sleep/wake issues may occur
• The display image may appear to "shrink" with black bars around it, may appear tinted, or have other issues
• Loss of built-in audio
• Loss of Bluetooth or AirPort functionality
• May not start up past the Apple logo

^{Source: Apple KB — Don't install a version of Mac OS X earlier than what came with your Mac}

Solution 2:

Generally no you can't go back. Mac OS 10.8 is going to fail upon trying to boot or install Mac OS 10.8 on to a machine that came with a newer version of OS X. Since that new Macbooks hardware identifier id is not listed as a supported Mac by prior OS X versions, since it did not exist when 10.8 was released. So when you try to boot 10.8 you will see an error message along the lines " Sorry this version of Mac OS is not compatible with this Computer"

Now with a little hacking of an existing disk that has 10.8 installed you could probably add your new machines hardware id to that list of supported Macs and get it to boot with 10.8, however your new MacBook would be missing some hardware drivers made for current generation Macs so it could be unstable and missing important drivers for graphics acceleration, and the track pad, and who knows what else.

So yes if stability is your goal then moving back to 10.8 on this MacBook is not a good idea.

If you really need 10.8 and the software you need to work is never going to be updated for 10.9 plus you could look for an older MacBook that will support 10.8. Check out http://www.everymac.com, they do an excellent job of listing which Mac OS versions are supported on any given Mac