mac osx system compatibility

[teelions]

Hi - I have several issues that all run together. The answers to which I cannot always find. So its difficult to locate which is causing the issue.

I have (what Apple calls) a vintage mac book pro. Version 10.9.5. It has its maximum of 8gb ram.  I don't know if its a 2008 or a 2009.  Now I know that this is not the forum for that question but going beyond it, I'm trying to run Lightroom (2015) on this laptop and I'm getting "Lightroom quit unexpectedly" errors.

How can I know for certain what the osx it has? Does the number 10.9 tell it all. Actually I thought that I updated to El Capitan some years ago (to accommodate Adobe CC) so I'm not certain what I have now because I recently upgraded my hd to a ssd and I don't know what the store put on there.    In the Apple app store it's prompting me to update to High Sierra. So does that mean I have 'Sierra'??    And, from what I understand, the most current osx available for download, High Sierra, will only run on 2009 or newer.

There's nothing I see that says the which California landmark I have but just the version number under 'About this mac'.   I'm not a Mac-person at all so its difficult for me to figure out their processes. I know PC's.

And do I need High Sierra to run an up-to-date Creative Cloud?

If I am able to update to High Sierra, depending if its a 2008 or 2009, will the ram be enough to run the osx with Photoshop and Lightroom together?

And if the ram can't handle i all, can roll back to an osx that will handle it all. I know Apple techs will do what the company wants and not what you ask.

I have a Creative Cloud subscription. I'm currently able to run Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5 smoothly, which was the only option.  The Lightroom option was also 2015 and with that I'm getting the "Lightroom quit unexpectedly" errors.

So the issue is getting Lightroom to work.

One more thing. I'm not big on upgrading software's or apps because it often makes software you owned a long time obsolete. If things are working then I don't bother despite the software's constant urging. And right now i have a working Photoshop. And that is why I'm reluctant to do what the app store says and upgrade to High Sierra

[Just Shoot Me]

You have some type of hardware problem. Could be heat or some physical hardware is faulty.

IIRC the 2008 and early 2009 MBPs had faulty hard drive to logic board cables. Worked sometime with some files then with other files it didn't work. Worked with slower rotating HDD and didn't work with faster Solid State Drives (SSDs).

Then you have the Faulty GPU chips that affected all 2008 models and continued into some models 201x models.

Right with the Vintage Mac and that older version of OS X you can't run newer versions of a lot of software. This is because Apple changed the OS and software writers had to Keep Up to what Apple was doing which stopped that newer software from working on older version of OS X.

It might be time to get a new, or newer, computer.

[johnrellis]

How can I know for certain what the osx it has?

Click the Apple menu in the upper-left corner of your screen and select About This Mac. That will list the marketer's name of your Macos version (e.g. Mavericks), the version number (e.g. 10.9.2), and the hardware model (e.g. Macbook Pro late 2009).  Please post here exactly what you see, or better, a screenshot.

[teelions]

Hi - thanks for your responses so far. The problem with the About Mac way is that it does not say the California name; only the version number.  So going back to my question as to what is my California name. I don't know which one by the looks of anything.  See attachment

[johnrellis]

10.9 is "Mavericks", which is four years old: macOS - Wikipedia

Most likely you have a MacBook Pro (Mid 2009): MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2009) and (15-inch, 2.53 GHz, Mid 2009) - Technical Specifications

(Until relatively recently, Apple traditionally made it hard to figure out which model of hardware and version of software you have. Recent versions of Macos just tell you explicitly.)

[johnrellis]

LR Classic (LR 7, the desktop version of LR) requires Macos 10.11 (El Capitan) or later: Lightroom Classic CC system requirements .

Your Macbook Pro (mid 2009) can run Macos 10.11 (El Capitan): OS X El Capitan - Technical Specifications . But it can't run Macos 10.12 (Sierra) : MacOS Sierra - Technical Specifications nor Macos 10.13 (High Sierra): MacOS Sierra - Technical Specifications .