Kontakt 5.3 in Snow Leopard?

[wdegillio]

Is anyone successfully running Kontakt 5.3 (as a plug-in) in Mac OS 10.6? I remember reading somewhere that it is possible, even though NI states that 5.3 requires a later version of the Mac OS. Since I have a Mac Pro 2.1, running a later version of the Mac OS is not an option for me without a system hack. (I'm currently researching possibilities for a new computer in the near future!) Thanks in advance.

[buzzsmith]

I'll double check later, but I'm pretty sure that I'm successfully using Kontakt 5. with 10.6.8 on a 2009 Intel Xeon Quad Core MacPro.

I just recently installed an SSD with Mountain Lion and DP 8.06 as a secondary boot drive, so I'm not positive on the Kontakt version number, but I know it's 5.xx something!

When I get the studio up and running shortly, I'll confirm.

Buzzy

[Armageddon]

I'm still not convinced that you can't install Mavericks on an older machine like mine. I remember back when Snow Leopard came out and Apple was offering upgrade discs for $25. At that time, I was on Tiger. I went to the Apple Store and tried to purchase an upgrade disc, only to be told by one of the "Geniuses" that the $25 upgrade disc would only work if I had Leopard already installed, that if I used it to upgrade from Tiger, I would completely screw up my system and that the only way to upgrade from Tiger was to buy the full installation disc for $125. I didn't purchase the $125 upgrade disc. A week later, Apple reluctantly admitted publicly that the $25 upgrade disc WOULD actually work via upgrading from Tiger with no problems.

Hardware-wise, my machine more than meets the requirements listed (and Apple is a bit sketchy about those) for both Mountain Lion and Mavericks, but the model year of my machine is one year earlier than the listed model year requirements. I haven't attempted to download Mavericks from the Apple Store yet, since those requirements dissuaded me from doing so, but I'm pretty sure your machine gets analyzed before you can download and, if it falls short, you won't be allowed to install (maybe not even download) Mavericks. This feels like a crass attempt by Apple to get you to buy a new computer. I have an install disc for Lion, the last version of OSX that, according to Apple, can be installed on my computer, but I've heard so many bad things about it, I've just stuck to Snow Leopard for the time being. I may be forced into installing Lion in the near future, just because Snow Leopard is no longer supported in any way by Apple (and Lion is actually on the chopping block, too!) and it would be nice to have a 64-bit OS on my 64-bit machine, but for the moment, I'm trying to get by with what I've got.

[David Polich]

The thing with NI's products is that almost all of them will still work on the newest OS. NI just
doesn't "officially" support older products anymore. I've still got B4II running in Mountain Lion,
using 32 Lives wrapper so it will run in DP in 64-bit mode. No problems.

Will Kontakt 5.3 work on an older OS that it isn't "supposed" to work on? I'd say you "might"
have some issues there. There's certainly some issues with the latest version of K5, some
Sample Modeling instruments and NI's own Session Strings Pro don't show up in it anymore,
for that reason I've stayed away from installing the very very latest version of K5. You may not
be able to download earlier versions of K5 anymore.

[Armageddon]

FYI: the 5.3 installer won't even open in Snow Leopard. You can try extracting the package directly from the installer using the usual methods, but you wind up with the app's icon showing the "crossed-out circle" in the middle of it, which means it can't be used with Snow Leopard or an older 32-bit only machine. You may have to bite the bullet and upgrade to Lion, or, sadly, do what I have to do and stick with 5.0.1 (which I believe is the last version able to run in SL).