Mac OS X forum: Can I upgrade os x 10.5.8 to 10.7?

Sure about that? A quick perusal of Apple's website shows 10.6 retailing for the same $30 now as it has since it was released. Maybe you were thinking of 10.5?

What is this soft wear called?

available here:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A

or

Lion (10.7)
Available here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-lion/id444303913?mt=12

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To be fair, and I'll preface this quickly by stating that I think you do have a valid point, the system requirements for Lion are pretty widely available, so really is it Apple's fault that you didn't take 5-10 minutes to track this information down first? That being said, it would be fairly trivial for them to add a check of your system specs into the app store, that would pop up a message saying your system does not meet the requirements for Lion. Thus preventing a lot of erroneous purchases, like I suspect is driving your post. They could even roll this out across all apps in the app store, where the app store program simply parses the system requirements provided by the developers, checks that against the specs of your system, and then when your system doesn't make the cut, a message pops up saying as much.

It would be a fairly trivial feature to add, the hardest part would be getting existing apps without much in the way of system requirements to have system requirements added. There are various ways of contending with that situation as well. So one does have to kind of wonder why this feature seems conspicuously absent from every app store-like program. The only exception I can think of is the Mozilla extension library, which manages to automatically disable the downloading of extensions that would not work with your browser version. If Mozilla can do it, then surely Apple can as well.

Like said, it MAY work, but it may also not work. Apple's upgrade system is really only designed to work with the previous version, so when you try and upgrade from two or more versions back, the results are unpredictable. Sometimes it works without a hitch, sometimes it just makes a mess of things.

Now, one minor detail, since you're running an OS version which leaves at least some degree of ambiguity. If you have a PowerPC based system (G4 or G5), then 10.6 or later will not run on your system. For 10.7 you need a system with at least a Core 2 Duo (a Core Duo won't cut it). You don't give any details on the system you're using, so if you go to the Apple icon in the menu bar, select About This Mac, and you don't see Core 2 Duo or Xeon next to where it says Processor, then 10.7 will not run on your system. A Core i3/i5/i7 would also work, but if you had a unit with one of those CPUs, it would already be running 10.6 or 10.7.

The safest route would be to buy a retail copy of 10.6 and upgrade to that first. Then you want to download the 10.6.8 v1.1 combo update off Apple's site, and install that. After which you could use the app store to download 10.7 and install it. Or you could just stick with 10.6 if you want, since that was a supported OS version for AIR.

You Cannot Do A Direct Upgrade From Leopard ! Leopard Does Not Have The Mac App. Store. The Mac App Store Is The Only Place You Can Buy Lion. You Will First Have To Go To macsales dot com; & For $29.00 Buy Snow Leopard. After Snow Leopard Is Installed Get All The Updates The Final Update 10.6.8 Will Include The Mac App. Store. From There You Can Purchase The Lion Download For $29.00. That The Only Way It Will Work Wit No Problems. Hope That Helps.

the App Store app is sitting in the Applications folder of Snow Leopard and above.
It is not integrated into the OS, it's just a stand alone app.

I wonder if that app, moved to another machine, sans Snow Leopard, would run.

I have nothing to try it on, all well below or already running Lion.


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