You can’t run the Classic environment on an Intel Mac, even if you’re running 10.4 from within Parallels or Fusion.įor that, you’ll need to download SheepShaver (opens in new tab). Perhaps you need to roll the clock back even further and run software designed for Mac OS 9? If you still have a Mac running 10.4 Tiger, you might be able to run them using the Classic environment, but this will only work on a Mac with a PowerPC processor.

You can pick up a copy of Snow Leopard Server (opens in new tab) on eBay for about £50/$60/AU$85, as long as you avoid getting a copy with unlimited licences. This works just the same as the regular edition of Snow Leopard (apart from some system administration features that you’ll never use) but handily, it will also install correctly under Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion. The only tiny complication is that Apple’s licensing agreement doesn’t allow the regular edition of Snow Leopard to be installed on a virtual machine, so you need to buy a copy of Snow Leopard Server instead.

The virtualisation software takes care of interfacing with your modern hardware, so it works even with older operating systems. Either of these can create a virtual machine that runs within your existing OS and allows you to install and run a completely different operating system on top of that.

Instead, you should use either Fusion 8 (opens in new tab) or Parallels Desktop 12 (opens in new tab). Unfortunately, running Snow Leopard isn’t as simple as just taking the original install DVD and putting the system on an external drive.Īn operating system from five years ago doesn’t have the right drivers for lots of the hardware on a modern Mac, such as a Retina display or USB 3.0 ports. So, if you have any software that originally ran on a G3, G4 or G5 Mac, that’s as far as it could be upgraded. Snow Leopard was also the last version of OS X to support PowerPC processors.

A lot of apps originally developed for 10.5 Leopard or 10.6 Snow Leopard won’t run on later versions. Many of the old 8-bit games are still surprisingly playable Virtually a PowerPC

Games for mac os x 10.7