Running PowerPC software under Lion.
Eleanor Spenceley So what options do you have if you really want to run your old software?
Your options appear to be (in order of cost):
1) Don't Upgrade, Snow Leopard is a great OS and it's going to be supported for a while yet.
2) Install Snow Leopard on a separate partition/Hard disk and boot your Mac.... Hmm Messy, slow and full of hassle...
3) Buy another (second hand) Mac specifically for Snow Leopard..... Yikes.... What will you get off ebay!!!
4) Buy another new Mac for Lion.... Go on you know you want too...
But there is another solution which you might consider... It'll cost, but it will be cheaper than 3) or 4) and will be more convenient than any of the options.
The solution:
a) Get some more memory. 4 GB is good... 8 GB is better.
b) Get a copy of Parallels, there is a new version (7) coming out in a few days. Vmware or Virtual Box (should do equally well, check their supported guest OSs).
c) Get a copy of Leopard Server or Snow Leopard Server. Leopard server sells for around £75 on ebay, Snow Leopard Server is around £120. (Mac OS X server software is fully licensed to run as a virtualised guest OS on your Mac).
This way, you can run a virtualised copy of (Snow) Leopard Server on your Mac very much like you do for running Windows. Don't worry about these being server versions, they run very much like the client versions and you can ignore the server software.
Parallels does not support the more integrated 'Coherence' mode with Mac OS X Server, but you will be able to see folders on your main machine easily and run the software 'full screen' if you want. I've even run an old version of Appleworks in this manner, so someone out there might be very happy with such a solution ;-)