What is the worst OS X version you've used?

[eyoungren]

What do you mean by pop-up folders? Spring Loaded Folders are there, have been since Jaguar. So I guess that means you mean the ability to dock a Finder window as a tab/drawer to the bottom of the screen? For me, that was a neat parlor trick, but never a core part of my Mac OS Classic workflow.

Yes, tabs that popped open.



What was a neat parlor trick to you was a space saving method on a 17" single screen. It allowed me to have multiple server share folders open and the ability to drag and drop between those server folders as well as between them and my desktop. With OS9, all those open folders took up valuable screen space (and you couldn't see your desktop). There was no Exposé then either.

And it decluttered my screen by keeping unused windows compact. Combined with spring-loaded folders it worked really well.

EDIT: Here's an example in 2013 I posted for something else. This is the left screen of a dual monitor PowerMac G5. It's a 24" monitor. All these open windows are folders on active server shares. This is clutter. Popup windows would have alleviated this. But they never came back so I've just learned to operate this way. And it's one reason why I hated Apple so much for limiting the size of Finder windows.

 

[ojfd]

What was a neat parlor trick to you was a space saving method on a 17" single screen.

Hear, hear! And don't forget the Window Shade. Miss it to this day.

 

[Fishrrman]

10.9 Mavericks.

I ALWAYS install new OS versions on an external drive for purposes of experimentation BEFORE I commit myself to it on my "main" drives.

My experimentation with Mavericks ended quickly.
Never touched it again (until 10.10 Yosemite came out).

It's one of the few OS versions I didn't even bother saving in my personal "Mac archives".

 

[Argon_]

Mojave. Dark mode, in exchange for vicious and recurrent stability issues.

 

[MBAir2010]

10.9 Mavericks.

I ALWAYS install new OS versions on an external drive for purposes of experimentation BEFORE I commit myself to it on my "main" drives.

I might use an external with Sequoia (which i refer to: sick-o-u) on the mac mini M1 running Monterey
just to see if that is more user friendly than Ventura or Sonoma and see if i like that AI.

We all know that nothing will be better than Mojave or in my case, Mountain Lion.

 

[eyoungren]

Mojave. Dark mode, in exchange for vicious and recurrent stability issues.

Mojave has been solid for me that last couple years. I recently upgraded to Monterey on my MacPro (using OCLP) and so far that's been decent as well. Not that I haven't had a few issues with Monterey. I'm using a 2009 MacPro 4,1 upgraded to a 5,1 though, so…Intel.

Anyway, there is a script that someone created for High Sierra that allows a dark mode on a per app basis. Primarily for Apple's own apps though. When I was using a 2015 work issued MBP (High Sierra) that's how I got dark mode in Finder. And it's not Apple's broken version of dark mode that you could use Terminal to get. The person who wrote the script changed a few things so it looks decent.

Of course, there is always XtraFinder as well. You can turn off all its other functions and just leave the dark background, light text function on for Finder. XtraFinder also gives you labels back if you like those (I do) instead of tags.

Just bringing this up because there are options if you want to use older versions of MacOS/OS X and still have dark mode.

 

[MazingerZND]

Leopard, then Lion. Easily.

 

[kagharaht]

Sonoma. When I received my iMac M3, during setup I allowed it to update to Sonoma. It was downhill from there. If i was new to the Mac I would’ve regretted the purchase. Finally erase all contents and settings fixed 99% of the issues I had. Made the experience with a brand new iMac Terrible and frustratin.

 

[MBAir2010]

Sonoma. When I received my iMac M3, during setup I allowed it to update to Sonoma. It was downhill from there. If i was new to the Mac I would’ve regretted the purchase. Finally erase all contents and settings fixed 99% of the issues I had. Made the experience with a brand new iMac Terrible and frustratin.

was this sonoma install from from Ventura?

 

[StellarVixen]

I loved this method of displaying tags. Current method of having a single dot is lame. Why did they ever change this?

 

[rungxanh2901]

For me there was no version that was "Windows Vista" bad, but OS X El Capitan for sure was quite boring.

 

[kagharaht]

was this sonoma install from from Ventura?

Yes. During set up as new (no migration from TM) it prompt me to update to Sonoma because the iMac M3 I received in December shipped with Ventura. I set up the iMac with no migration. Just synch iCloud data and downloaded all the Apps from scratch.

 

[MBAir2010]

Yes. During set up as new (no migration from TM) it prompt me to update to Sonoma because the iMac M3 I received in December shipped with Ventura. I set up the iMac with no migration. Just synch iCloud data and downloaded all the Apps from scratch.

And Sonoma gave your imac problems?
Wow, that was a shame and should not have happened since they are they same system.

 

[eyoungren]

I loved this method of displaying tags. Current method of having a single dot is lame. Why did they ever change this?

IDK. I suppose the idea was that you could have multiple tags. Back then I had a color reference to what was important. Now, not at all.

 

[kagharaht]

And Sonoma gave your imac problems?
Wow, that was a shame and should not have happened since they are they same system.

Yes very bad. I have post of all the issues it caused. From a clean set up too. I mean Apple produces millions of these things and once in awhile something may go wrong. At least now I know it was software not hardware. Erase and set up as new was easy. I’m just glad all my data is on iCloud and reinstalling Apps was a snap After the erase.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Hi!
I remember when Lion was released people called it "Apple's Vista" and saying that it's the worst OS version ever. Now that I think back I wasn't a big fan of Lion either. It was slower on my Mac than Snow Leopard or Leopard. Launchpad had no search function it was the first time ever my Mac had kernel panics and to be frank, I don't have good memories of Lion. The wallpaper was nice though, but then again I remember people hating on Yosemite and El Capitan as well and Apple trolled us with iMessage.
After Beta, Messages Will Be Exclusive to OS X Mountain Lion - it was very cruel thing to do, Apple. I'll never forget + dropping bunch of Macs, including mine and then discover than the patched version of OS X Mountain Lion ran on my unsupported Mac better than Lion ever did. I still haven't forgiven Apple for dropping the support on MacBook 4,1 so early. I'm 100% sure it could've ran Mountain Lion, even Mavericks ran on my MacBook 4,1 perfectly. El Capitan and Yosemite not so much. I'm 100% sure Apple would've been able to support Mavericks officially on that white plastic MacBook. This is even worse than MacBook Pro 7,1 not getting night shift feature in High Sierra, yet flux worked perfectly and Windows 10's Night light worked out of the box as well.

I don't care what anyone says, but Leopard was the best. It ran The Sims 2, which Snow Leopard didn't (still have the DVD somewhere), the battery on Leopard lasted longer than on Snow Leopard and it was awesome and looked futuristic. In fact, I bought my first Mac because of the Leopard's wallpaper and Dock.

If I saw Mac today for the first time I'm not really sure I'd buy one.
But yeah, I have the worst memories with Lion. How about you guys?

I have never tried to remember details of OS versions from more than a decade ago, and consider asking something like What was the worst OS X? akin to asking When did you stop beating your wife?

However I was managing both Mac/Win back then and I do remember that the worst OS X version was better than the best Windows version.

 

[MBAir2010]

I have never tried to remember details of OS versions from more than a decade ago

Yes, some comments here i had to search the OSX's number indicated in the post.

 

[f54da]

What do you mean by pop-up folders? Spring Loaded Folders are there, have been since Jaguar. So I guess that means you mean the ability to dock a Finder window as a tab/drawer to the bottom of the screen? For me, that was a neat parlor trick, but never a core part of my Mac OS Classic workflow.

Did somebody say Spatial Finder? /siracusa materializes out of thin air

Tbh I never understood the love for spatial finder. Good luck that with that when navigating 10 folders deep or with hundreds of files. If anything the baggage of spatial finder is what prevents finder from being a competent file manager, e.g. the lack of dual-pane etc.

 

[QuickSilverLining]

I have used almost every version of Mac OS X/macOS, both daily use when those systems were current and now in retro computing.

My least favorites are:

1. 10.5 – pretty sluggish, especially on PowerPC hardware. A resource hog on those systems, but even on the faster systems
2. 10.7 Lion – slow, bloated, and the beginning of the iPhone-ification of the Mac
3. 10.15 Catalina – buggy, unstable, dropped 32 bit apps
4. 12.x Monterey – buggy
5. 14.x Sonoma – even buggier than Monterey, further iPhone-ification of the UI like the stupid new Settings panel

I know this wasn't asked, but since we're here my most favorite versions have been

1. 10.4 Tiger – kind of like Mac's XP moment, stable and runs well on a wide variety of hardware including G3 Macs
2. 10.6 Snow Leopard – really stable and also runs well on a lot of machines
3. 10.11 and 10.13 were not too bad for me. Probably the most stable/least buggy MacOS has been in the past 10 years, which isn't saying much.

 

[ojfd]

Did somebody say Spatial Finder? /siracusa materializes out of thin air

Tbh I never understood the love for spatial finder. Good luck that with that when navigating 10 folders deep or with hundreds of files. If anything the baggage of spatial finder is what prevents finder from being a competent file manager, e.g. the lack of dual-pane etc.

Horses for courses. Spatial Finder is what made Mac a Mac 40 years ago. Column view in OSX looks more like Norton Commander than anything else. Eek!

 

[Razorpit]

Saw the title of the thread in the forums, and without reading the original post came here to say Lion. 😄

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

I only started using Macs with Catalina and was quite fond of it. Mind you, that was shortly before Big Sur which I much preferred over Catalina.

My least favorite version so far was Monterey because I had a number of issues and random crashes with it that didn’t happen before or after.
If it wasn’t for universal control, though, I would have gladly stayed on Big Sur on all my devices because I can’t think of any features since then that I really wanted.

 

[StellarVixen]

Did somebody say Spatial Finder? /siracusa materializes out of thin air

Tbh I never understood the love for spatial finder. Good luck that with that when navigating 10 folders deep or with hundreds of files. If anything the baggage of spatial finder is what prevents finder from being a competent file manager, e.g. the lack of dual-pane etc.

There was still spatial mode in Finder last time I checked

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I have always just ignored a non-fatal crash once in a while [weekly], so no specific complaints. IMO those of us who started with the earliest Macs (which crashed constantly) find more modern hardware/software relatively bombproof. My best OS has been 13.5 Ventura, but my feeling is that having excess available RAM for the first time ever [96 GB on board an M2] probably is a big part of the super-smooth operation of Ventura.

14.5 may be time for me to move up to Sonoma. What do y'all think of 14.5?

 

[MBAir2010]

14.5 may be time for me to move up to Sonoma. What do y'all think of 14.5?

That depends on what mac you are using and what for.
Sonoma was incredibly fast on my macbook air and macmini M1 with only 8GB RAM.

i'm trying to remember what the advances from Ventura were though.