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How to Prepare for Big Sur

UtterDisbelief

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As many people have been running system-definitions - the model of Apple Mac your Hackintosh is emulating - which will no-longer be supported under Big Sur, if you would like to upgrade when the time comes you will need make some changes to your config.plist.

I've been happily running system-definition iMac14,2 for many years but this is an old Mac model which will not be supported going forward with Big Sur. So I need to prepare now.

To get this thread started I'll show you what I needed to do. YMMV but I hope what we can all add to this thread will be useful, or at the very least a pointer as to required actions.

1) Open config.plist in Clover Configurator or OpenCore Configurator.

2) Go to the SMBIOS (Clover) or PlatformInfo / DataHub-Generic-PlatformNVRAM (OpenCore) section.

3) Open TextEdit and copy and paste into a new document your present Serial Number, Board Serial Number and System UUID. Save this safely.

4) Open the pull-down menu next to Model Lookup / Check Coverage buttons and select your new, compatible system-definition. For my iMac14,2 machine I chose to upgrade to iMac17,1. (iMac19,* might be a closer match to my hardware but there are other considerations for these two). This will populate all the necessary fields.

** What you do next is your choice and the important thing here is not to change your definition too many times while connected to the Internet or Apple might lock your ID until you contact them, so take care. I'll explain a reason for the two choices later on.

5) You can choose to create a new Mac as far as Apple is concerned and save all the changes the Configurator has made. You will then be required to re-authorise your iCloud connection with your password when you reboot. This will log a "new" machine against your Apple ID.

OR

You can paste back in the Serial-Number, Board Serial Number and System UUID from the TextEdit document you created earlier. This will restore your "Apple Mac" as far as Apple is concerned, but again you will need to re-authorise iCloud when you reboot.

** Bear in mind if you have expensive software applications locked to serial-numbers or SUUIDs to activate them, then re-using your old SMBIOS serials might be required. Though this should work, software developers can be very clever in their activation methods. A good idea would be to do some on-line research just in case you are actually unable to upgrade to Big Sur, or beyond an earlier macOS version, because of these restrictions.

Other issues:

6) POP email accounts will not log-on, asking you to input your passwords for each mail-box again. This will not work. You will need to delete each mail account and set-up as new again. This will work but re-download all messages left on your servers.

7) Changing serial-numbers like this has the potential to give you a serial that does not match the hardware it is on. Apple encodes some date info in the number. However, this does work and maybe required for that software activation.

Okay, that's my first post on this subject. Please chime in with your findings, agreements/disagreements, so we can all help each other upgrade successfully to Big Sur.

:)
 
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As an alternative to the copy/paste approach you could save a copy of your current config.plist which you could then use to get back to where you started from if everything goes udders upwards.
 
I recommend logging out of iCloud and the Mac App Store before updating your SMBIOS information.
 
Also if making a new serial, make sure it's valid but not registred to a real Mac or bad things usually happens (unless it's your own?)
 
OR

You can paste back in the Serial-Number, Board Serial Number and System UUID from the TextEdit document you created earlier. This will restore your "Apple Mac" as far as Apple is concerned, but again you will need to re-authorise iCloud when you reboot.
Are there any issues with using a SN that does not match the system definition you choose?
 
Are there any issues with using a SN that does not match the system definition you choose?

That is a good question :thumbup:

I have done this myself and had no problems. The PC identifies itself as one machine while I know the serial-number does not match. However I had everything working - iMessage, AirDrop, Continuity and Handoff, AppStore and DRM playback. No problem with iCloud either.

Having said that it maybe depends on the sys-def and serial you use. I haven't tried any others. Right now, of course given my post above, everything matches ready for Big Sur.

YMMV. That's why I say take care. @P1LGRIM and @Stork are spot-on in their comments above.

:)
 
Are there any issues with using a SN that does not match the system definition you choose?
If you do not have a vast video library on the apple cloud I would not worry too much... However, if you have 380 movies connected to your Apple ID would you want to run the risk? Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft, and other large software companies let you migrate your keys.
 
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If you do not have a vast video library on the apple cloud I would not worry too much... However, if you have 380 movies connected to your Apple ID would you want to run the risk? Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft, and other large software companies let you migrate your keys.
I'm pretty sure my personal use case has about the least risk - I use iCloud sync with my iPad, and the App Store for software updates. Essentially no DRMed audio or video, and no essential licensed software that couldn't be transferred.

I'm also very much a casual Hackintosher, and I often am not 100% sure on how things work; so when I see a suggestion to do something for the first time (in this case, keeping an old S/N and UUID to use with a new system definition) I like to understand the implications of my different options. Hopefully any information in the replies ends up being useful for other people in my situation.
 
I'm pretty sure my personal use case has about the least risk - I use iCloud sync with my iPad, and the App Store for software updates. Essentially no DRMed audio or video, and no essential licensed software that couldn't be transferred.

I'm also very much a casual Hackintosher, and I often am not 100% sure on how things work; so when I see a suggestion to do something for the first time (in this case, keeping an old S/N and UUID to use with a new system definition) I like to understand the implications of my different options. Hopefully any information in the replies ends up being useful for other people in my situation.
Then you can use either method and do not have much to worry about other than logging out of iCloud beforehand.
 
I have logged out of Apple ID, iCloud.
Then I updated the smbios id , and serial.
and logged into Apple ID.
everything is working fine. still on Catalina. wait and watch Big Sur for a few months, before upgrading.
 
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