Skip to main content
Question

FYI - High Sierra now an *UPDATE* on Macs running OS X 10.10 Yosemite

  • April 12, 2018
  • 8 replies
  • 74 views
P
Forum|alt.badge.img+7

[Hopefully this isn't something pre-announced that I just missed, but I did try to search for it first.]

We have a restriction on the the macOS High Sierra Installer and noticed starting on Tuesday a spike in the number of machines violating the restriction. All the Macs were running OS X 10.10.5, and I noticed that they had run Software Updates recently. When I check for updates the Macs, I see the following:

softwareupdate --list --all
Software Update Tool
Copyright 2002-2012 Apple Inc.

Finding available software
Software Update found the following new or updated software:
   * Install macOS High Sierra- 
    macOS High Sierra ( ), 5106655K [recommended]

Apparently earlier this week Apple made High Sierra an UPDATE rather than an upgrade. This change appears to only be on OS X 10.10 Yosemite (presumably 10.10.5), as I had checked for this on OS X 10.9 Mavericks and OS X 10.11 El Capitan, and neither show "Install macOS High Sierra" when checking for updates.

If you don't want your Yosemite Macs to automatically upgrade to High Sierra, you can run this command: softwareupdate --ignore "Install macOS High Sierra" This will prevent High Sierra from appearing in the Updates tab of App Store.app and from installing when running updates.

      8 replies

      P
      Forum|alt.badge.img+7
      • pcrandom
      • Author
      • Contributor
      • April 12, 2018

      Of course @gregneagle has it covered: https://managingosx.wordpress.com/2018/04/11/unwelcome-apple-surprise/

      C
      Forum|alt.badge.img+15
      • cbrewer
      • Esteemed Contributor
      • April 12, 2018

      I'm glad Apple is doing this. Yosemite is end-of-life on security updates. I'd rather see them get updated than get compromised.

        P
        Forum|alt.badge.img+7
        • pcrandom
        • Author
        • Contributor
        • April 12, 2018

        @cbrewer I don't disagree, but we're not ready to move to High Sierra yet in our environment. We've been upgrading older OSes to Sierra.

        C
        Forum|alt.badge.img+7
        • c_archibald
        • Valued Contributor
        • April 12, 2018

        If Windows can do it with 10, Apple will do it too. Odd that 10.11 doesn't get the same treatment.

        R
        Forum|alt.badge.img+33
        • rich.trouton
        • Hall of Fame
        • April 13, 2018

        This is not an automatic upgrade, and is similar to behavior seen on El Capitan, where the Sierra installer was pushed:

        https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/managing-the-automatic-download-of-the-macos-sierra-installer-to-compatible-macs/

        P
        Forum|alt.badge.img+7
        • pcrandom
        • Author
        • Contributor
        • April 13, 2018

        Thanks @rtrouton. I haven’t tested it myself yet to see the prompting after the installer is downloaded, but if I recall, the Sierra installer download process was not transparent, you didn’t see it using softwareupdate and you couldn’t block it individually using --ignore like you seem to be able to with this one. Will test tomorrow.

        P
        Forum|alt.badge.img+7
        • pcrandom
        • Author
        • Contributor
        • April 13, 2018

        Additional details after testing: If I run softwareupdate --download --all it downloads the installer to /Library/Updates and leaves it there but does not run the update. If I then run softwareupdate --install --all (or click the Update button in App Store.app) then it puts Install macOS High Sierra.app in /Applications and launches it. So, like Rich said, not an automatic upgrade.

        Interestingly, after the installer is no longer in /Library/Updates or in /Applications (I deleted it), if I run softwareupdate --download --all it no longer lists it as an available update.

        chris_kemp
        Forum|alt.badge.img+20
        • chris_kemp
        • Jamf Heroes
        • April 14, 2018

        Seems like a good thing to me, 10.10 is pretty long in the tooth at this point. Since it's not going to be patched for the Meltdown & Spectre vulnerabilities in particular, it's really in your interest to upgrade away from it.

        Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement