Dropping from Maverick to Snow Leopard

[RgrF]

Thanks for the help. The family is currently running 10.6 on 6 devices (3 iMacs and 3 MBPs) so for now I want to keep it consistent.

I'll be buying a new main machine within a year or so and will upgrade them all after my learning curve is complete. I'm still from the school of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
(jdc: you're correct, it 's a late 2009)

PS: My favorite long lasting OSs were/are 6.0.8; 8.6 &10.6; maybe 10.9 will become the next favorite.

[decay]

If you have a 10.8 installer, it might not be as slow as 10.9 on that machine.

You'll want to be able to use current software.

Is the RAM pretty robust?

[Bernie]

Migrating backwards is a major pain in the butt. iTunes files things different. Mail files things different. Nuke and pave.
I have been toying with it for some time. Moving things to my snow laptop from my tower. It is about there and I could not would not wish this on anyone.

[modelamac]

To go backwards, you need to boot from a different drive and erase the Mac HD(target Disk mode). You probably won't be allowed to "degrade" from the iMac, and the differences in the OS are huge. You don't want any Mavericks "dust" on your Snow Leopard. It's asking for trouble.

Once SL is installed, Migration Assistant will bring over everything you want from one of their other Macs.

The thing they will miss from Mavericks is the much improved handling of memory, iCloud syncing, and the additional security updates. Mavericks has been fairly stable for most. Oh, and Mavericks has Enhanced dictation, which I use a lot. I'm very close to you in age, and my eyes, ears, and fingers don't work all that well anymore. I assume the users of this iMac are younger.

RgrF wrote:
Was just gifted with a 2010 era 24" iMac. I'm setting it up to give one of the grandkids. It has a clean Maverick install but, for trouble shooting and restore purposes, I'd prefer installing Snow Leopard.

Is installing 10.6 over 10.9 a problem? Are there hidden files that could cause issues etc?

[tlh828]

What Lew Zealand said.