I Just bought my first mac cuz Im sick of Wondows. Did I get the vista of Mac with my new Macbook? Will apple downgrade me to Tiger if Im not satisfied?

No

No - you would need to buy a copy of Tiger on eBay.
And note that it is usual for new Macs to require the latest version of the OS - i.e. you usually cannot run any version of OS X that predates the design date of your Mac. (The new hardware requires the drivers etc that only come in the later OS versions.)

GUID partition
 

i have been installing tiger on a leopard minimac via firewire.

the destination disk MUST be GUID partition scheme or tiger wont install.

use disk utility to erase the destination.
this defaults to install 1 apple partition map.
go to partition, select options, select GUID partition.
create 1 GUID partition.

then install tiger.

Is this true??? I bought my MacBook with Leopard installed last December. I'm now trying to use it primarily for audio (Logic 8 and Ableton Live). The last 2 updates render my computer useless for this purpose, and I'm currently bidding on Tiger on eBay in hopes that it will make my computer usable again.

Has anyone tried installing Tiger on a Leopard-based Mac and succeeded?

This is getting seriously ridiculous. Do I have to look for a used MacBook circa Tiger OS? This makes me think seriously about getting a Dell and suffering Windows XP. Ugh.

Why would you want to install Tiger instead of merely re-installing the version of Leopard that it seems you were working happily with before the "updates"?

I can't verify one way or another whether Leopard w/o updates works or not, as I'm a recovering noob with both audio and Macs. I wasn't using Logic 8 until 10.5.1 or so, so I don't have a frame of reference to compare...but: the Leopard has little street cred it seems among many audio users, update or no.

Tiger on the other hand seems to win out hands down for stability. I guess I'll try to install Tiger on a GUID partition per skylab's suggestion and see how that flies. Meanwhile, yes, I'll also go back to 10.5.0 Leopard and review the performance quality there, as a slightly paler shade of noob green.

Still, isn't it a bit ridiculous how messy all of this has become? I'm starting to feel like joining a Mac's Anonymous support group :(

I've been able to successfully reinstall Leopard 10.5.3, and after a little fiddling (including removing my MIDI drivers and storing them in a folder, and the returning them again, as well as reinstalling one set of drivers), I now am back to having access to my drivers and being able to use Leopard for Audio.

I've gotten plenty of confirmation that I will not be able to install Tiger on an Intel MacBook that came with Leopard. Time to sell this puppy...er...kitty.

Fiz: What machine are you using? If you REALLY want to downgrade, you may try to see if you can obtain restore discs of an earlier iteration of the Mac you are using. IE, the MacBook. If you can obtain a Tiger disc for the previous-generation MacBook, you can do it no problem.

Do be aware that some hardware may not work.

That being said, I'm not exactly a Leopard fan myself. I understand your pain.

Downgrade from leopard to panther
 

because its the only way to install vp7 and xp for the one program that isn't available on mac (because the developer is short sighted! ie. read narrow minded)...drivers daily log.

If you are on an Intel machine, No way Panther's going to work.

Panther on intel?
 

who said panther on intel. Obviously if I'm running panther it will be on a powerpc. Tiger goes either way depending on when the computer was bought.:eek:

hey, how did you do it?
i have the tiger cd, but it doesn't allow me to reboot it from the cd

Leopard to Panther to Tiger :(
 

As far as i can surmise from this thread, to "downgrade" one needs to use the system disks that came with the machine. So in the case of my G4 Powerbook, that would be to Panther. Then an upgrade to get back to Tiger. This sounds incredibly tedious, but I can't see i have a lot of choice. Tiger was working like a dream, whereas Leopard is hideously slow and extremely unstable. This seems like the worst bit of coding i've seen from apple for many a long year.

Anyway, any suggestions on how to avoid having to reinstall all apps and generally how to keep the machine remembering who it is/was etc, would be greatly appreciated.

Looks like i've got a fun weekend ahead:(

does any one know how to use time machine on tiger? I want to go back but am too fond of the little bugger, saved my ass several times in the few months I'm using it. plus I am totally without space on my drive and the external is also full so I won't be able to archive and install nor can I backup my stuff on the EHD. what will happen to the database of the iPhoto and Mail, they were upgraded when I moved to Leopard, so won't they be lost if I downgrade?

You can't use Time Machine on Tiger - it is a Leopard only feature! iPhoto is not dependant on Leopard, so that shouldn't be a problem. The version of Mail in Leopard is different than that of Tiger, so I can't really say what will happen. You should probably export your messages just in case, that way you can re-import them if necessary. Do you have a good reason for wanting to downgrade to Tiger?

I guess I am just unhappy with the general performance of this OS, many MANY little bugs that I can't seem to solve. it is much slower than what I remember tiger to be. it is full of really cool features that would be missed but I guess I was happier with Tiger. iPhoto 7 is leopard dependent (I think). They removed few things that I really miss e.g. the ability to have two windows (even of the same app) working with two different input sources (which I used daily) and the ability to control the global appearance of the finder's window or the fact that search doesn't remember that I like to search in the folder I am in and file names (it keeps going back to "on the computer" and "content") or that search and "show all in spotlight" aren't divided anymore according types. or the side bar on each finder window - there are so many things I don't use and CAN'T remove and the icons are soooo small... and sooooooo many others. in short I am not sure it was a good upgrade to the OSX family... even though that preview and TM are really cool and even essential, and the new applications like mail and iCal are much better in some aspects (but even here they changed really good things to bad). it is like apple software designer's ingenuity was replaced by MS stupidity and tendency to make things the wrong way. may be apple was infiltrated by secret MS agents designed to lower the attractiveness of apple products. or like any small and good thing, it explodes when it is blown out of proportion. I liked apple when they were expensive and unique (up to around the time they changed to intel)... oh well... what can I do???

See the iLife '08 System Requirements.

True True :)

i'm having alot of problems with snow leopard. this is my first mac and so far, i hate it. nothing works. i've read that it is possible to downgrade to tiger. where do i get the tiger cd's? i've had this imac about a month and have had lots of problems transferring from a pc to this mac. faves/bookmarks will not transfer. some email addresses transferred but those that did were duplicated and if i try to remove one duplicate, it removes all contacts. also, cannot transfer over 500 saved emails with 40 different folders. have tried using mac's mail but it had the same problems as microsoft office for mac 2008 entourage. neither of them will show pics and the settings in both have been reset to download and to show all pics.

Your post would be best as a new thread, since you've joined onto a fairly old discussion about downgrading from Leopard. You may get more help if you post in the "System" section.

NOTHING works? That's unusual. Please be much more specific.

If you have bought a brand new Mac, it is unlikely that Tiger will work on it, as Tiger does not have the driver components for the newer hardware.
I'm also unclear why you think downgrading to Tiger will solve your problems.

As to your problems transferring data from a PC to your Mac, you need to provide a lot more information. What browser do you use, and what method have you tried for transferring bookmarks? Apple Mail is usually pretty good at importing MS Outlook emails.

Your problem with using email, in 2 mail clients, is that embedded pictures do not display? Images display fine for me in Apple Mail. Have you turned off Edit > Attachments > Always insert attachment at end of message ???