Snow Leopard as Guest on Lion

I see that you can run snow leopard server as a guest. Can you run "Snow Leopard" as a guest using parallels 6 under Mac OS X Lion (10.7)

 

No, Snow Leopard client isn't allowed to be virtualised like server is, as it's not in the Apple user agreement.
Both Lion server and client on the other hand are both allowed.

 

I've been considering this same question. So I could run Lion as a guest OS in Parallels on a Mac running Snow Leopard as its main OS?

 

I would like to do the opposite; run snow leopard as a guest on Lion. I hope Apple modifies their license agreement since older applications (which require Rosetta) will no longer run on Lion.

 

This is kind of a grey area. The user agreement specifically says you can run 2 virtual copies only on Apple branded computers that have Lion natively installed. This however doesn't specifically say the virtual copy must run within the host copy. You could for example have a dual boot system. 1 partition Snow Leopard the other Lion and also have a virtualised copy of Lion running within Snow Leopard. You could even go as far as having Lion run virtualised within Windows via Boot Camp. So long as you have a native install of Lion on that same Apple branded system. I don't see anything in the user agreement specifically ruling this out!

So, as long as it's an Apple computer with Lion natively installed on it, anything goes.

 

Many should want to do this

I have numerous applications which rely on Rosetta, and which have no possibility of upgrade. I should think that there are many in my shoes (users of Quicken 2007, for example) and so there should be a huge market for using Parallels to run Snow Leopard as a virtual OS under Lion. So is anyone actually doing this?

 

Snow Leopard Server is the only valid guest on Lion

I have Lion natively installed and I decided to try to install Snow Leopard (not Server) as a virtual copy, I received the following message with this attempt:
An invalid Mac OS version is installed.
Mac OS X virtual machines can have only the Mac OS X Server Leopard or Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard operating system installed. Other versions of Mac OS are not supported.

 

I would like to do the same thing: Snow Leopard guest on Lion host for a few PPC applications which are no longer supported on Lion without Rosetta. I don't need to use them all the time, so a virtual machine is the perfect thing for the job.

If anyone manages to do this, please share!! I've tried using VirtualBox 4 too and it doesn't work their either.

 

I also would very much like to run Snow Leopard Rosetta apps as a virtual OS under Lion.

Apple, please allow this functionality... you have nothing to loose!

 

Have a look here:
http://www.ivanexpert.com/blog/2011/08/snow-leopard-as-a-parallelsvmwarevirtualbox-guest-os/

it works !
Kind regards

 

SL as guest on Lion IS possible, but not for the faint of heart

FYI:

Running Snow Leopard (not Snow Leopard Server) as a guest in most virtual machine products (Parallels, VMWare, etc.) IS possible, but requires knowledge of Terminal commands to make it work.

You have to manually modify system files to trick the VM app into thinking that you're installing SL Server when you're really just installing SL.

A google search reveals various walkthroughs of how to do this. Some walkthroughs work better than others.

The most complicated parts relate to the initial installation of the guest OS and the installation of updates. But it seems that once you make it past all the updates and reach 10.6.8, you are free and clear and can start and stop the guest OS as normal.

 

I managed to install a Leopard 10.5 client vm on Lion. Problem, no network interface card. Any solution to this?

EULA? When Apple upgrades its Mac OS Xes, some software developers move up with them and stop supporting their older version software. Zinio - big irritating example. Their legacy Zinio Reader 3 won't work with Lion. You say no big deal, just use their latest AIR app, Reader 4. In case you didn't know, some of their DRM-protected older magazines are not made available for the Reader 4 and will NEVER be available. I have to use Reader 3 to read those old digital magazines. And since it's DRM-protected, I need an internet connection to call back to Zinio servers to verify. Only works in Leopard or SL. I need Leopard 10.5 for something else too. Not use SL. With no network, I can't do anything. Really hate all these nonsense.

Anyhow, can someone guide me on how to get network interface up in a Leopard VM with Parallels? PM me privately if you don't want to talk this openly. Thanks!

 

I also saw the network interface disappearing. Removing and then adding the network interface from the VM seems to fix it, at least in a Snow Leopard 10.6 guest.

Just go into the VM configuration window, choose the Hardware tab, click "Network 1" to select it, and then click the little '-' button to remove it from the VM. Then hit '+' and choose to add a new network interface.

 

I will try that later.

On VMware Fusion. I upgrade to version 4 release today and it BROKE my perfect setup. @#$%&! Forget to backup the vm file. Good thing, I haven't bought version 4 yet. Using the demo trial download.

 

Yup, network if fine with Snow Leopard 10.6 VM

Delete Network and Add again, still no go for Leopard 10.5 VM. ARGHHHH!!!

Any other ideas to get network up with 10.5 VM?

 

I still can't get any network inteface in a Leopard 10.5 guest with the latest update.

However with VMware Fusion 4.0.1 latest, everything works fine with 10.5 guest vm.

Should I dump Parallels Desktop. Damn, I paid for it already.

 

Does Parallels 7 actually allow SL install on Lion?

I'm not convinced actually that Apple's EULA rules out running SL client as a guest in Lion, although it has been widely reported by third-parties that this is the case. Asking anyone to provide the documentary evidence has not revealed anything that convinces me.

The EULA is very vague, but it specifically allows:

From: http://f.cl.ly/items/2v3z042d1O2g29021g13/macosx107.pdf

Now what's vague about this is nowhere in this document is "the Apple Software" defined as 10.7 Lion. Even the title of the document itself does not refer to the 10.7 iteration specifically, but OS X generally. Reading through it, the term "the Apple Software" appears to refer to any version of OS X (10.x.x). If so, there is no legal sanction against running a virtual SL client in Lion.

However that may be, I'm less interested in the legal complexities as the practical ones. What I want to know is whether Parallels 7 will actually let you install and run an SL virtue machine. I heard there was one early build of P7 that did so, but that later builds did not.

Can anyone answer the practical question definitively either way?

Many thanks.

(I'm still running P6 and whether I upgrade to P7 may largely depend on this).

 

Has anyone tried to do it this way?

Can I set up a partition on the hard drive of my newer Mac Mini running Lion, migrate my existing Mac Mini running Snow Leopard to that partition and then access that partition through Parallels? I really don't want to have to reboot to access the couple of programs that I need on my old Mac.

 

No plugins with Lion as guest

I have installed Lion as a VM on a Snow Leopard host. It installs fine and appears to work. However, Safari or Firefox will not successfully load a page that requires Flash or Firefox. I don't know if this is an installation problem that can be fixed, or whether it's fatal.

Anybody get this to work?