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Is there a way of removing the os upgrade rom system prefs?

jaybass

What are you attempting to do by removing the "upgrade ROM system prefs"?

I am not attempting to do anything other than to remove the reminder to upgrade to Monterey ie the red dot with #1 in it. I cannot find a way to remove it so if that is the case, then so be it.

jaybass

I also am among the people who find "upgrade to Monterey" reminders a giant pain in the butt. I get that flag popping out at the top right of the screen, obscuring the HD Icon. It will stay until I click on the "view" option, which takes me to the app store....a time-consuming distraction. Apple seems disinterested in the fact that users know there are other OS's available but those users have their own reasons for staying with a particular OS.

My iMac cannot run Monterey but I periodically get that popup asking me to do exactly that! I don't know any way to stop this, but at least it happens only sporadically.

NOW I understand your question. What you are seeing is software, not Read-Only Memory. It is a function built into macOS and removing it would likely be impractical if not impossible. If it really bothers you might consider switching to one of the Linux variants such as Ubuntu.

I wonder if jaybass didn't maybe mean "from" but mistyped it as "rom."

At any rate, the best we can apparently do is make sure that System Prefs > Software Update > Advanced > Check for updates is UNchecked. I think it eliminates the pop-ups, but not the red dot.

That is plausible, but it also emphasizes the need to re-read and correct typos and spelling errors. (I know, the pot calling the kettle black )

Actually, I see red dots all over the place, on icons in the dock, in launchpad, stacks, and Finder. But, it generally has a number in it. The red dot indicates an app has an action pending and the number indicates the number of pending actions. For example the number of unread messages in Mail, Message,or FaceTime; a timed alarm event in Fantastical or Todoist, or a pending updates in App Store. The only place I do not see them is Software Update because I have it set to "Automatically Keep My Mac Up-to-date", but that is not a viable option for some users. If there were a single point of control it would logically be in SystemPreferences > Notifications and could be there on an app-by-app basis. You might try turning Notifications off altogether but that kills most alarms.

I was going to do that, but then realized I would not get notifications of security updates to Safari, et cetera, which I want to get. Is Apple ignoring nomenclature? It seems to me that changing from Mojave to Monterey would be an upgrade, not an update.

How about, in System Preferences>Software Update, unchecking "Check for updates", but leaving checked "Install system data files and security updates"? Depending on what updates this preference would check for, this could eliminate os upgrades, but keep security stuff current.

Quite the contrary Apple is coming in line with industry practices and other operating systems in the Apple ecosystem. For twenty years MacOS X remained at 10 and major versions were identified by the second digit, for example, Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah) and Mac OS X 10.1 (Puma) as all of these were based on the same basic underpinnings but had significant new features. Patches, bug fixes, etc. were designated by the third digit ie. Mac OS X 10.15.1, 10.15.2, and so on. The transition from Mac OS X to macOS represented two changes: major and very significant changes in the OS kernel and the transition from Intel to Apple silicon. (Not to mention bringing macOS in line with iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS, & TVOS.) While the Big Sur user interface looked pretty much the same as Catalina there were enough under the hood changes it could almost be considered a new OS, thus instead of being Mac IOS X 10.16 it became macOS 11. Monterey (macOS 12) has refined those changes and added a number of its own. In MacOS X going from MacOS X 10.14 (Mojave) to 10.15 (Catalina) was an upGRADE and going from MacOS X 10.14.0 to MacOS X 10.14.1 an upDATE. The only difference now is the Mac OS X 10.x has become macOS x so going from macOS 11 (Big Sur) to macOS 12 (Monterey) is an upGRADE while going from macOS 12.0 (Monterey) to macOS 12.1 (still Monterey) is an upDATE.

You've confirmed what ryck said, but haven't addressed why Software Update uses the word "update" exclusively, i.e. doesn't address the fact that there are upDATES and upGRADES.

I'll guess that it's for the sake of simplicity of presentation, and perhaps, too, to avoid confusing less sophisticated users with info they don't really need...i.e. they bring their Macs "up to date" without regard for the particular nature of what they're doing.

I have participated in multiple extended discussions (a.k.a. arguments) over what specifically constitutes the difference between an upDATE and an upGRADE and while the specific distinction for a given project or organization is impacted by the nature of the project, the needs of the development team(s), and (especially in commercial projects) MARKETING considerations; the generally accepted guideline is an upGRADE has significant new features while an upDATE contains bug fixes, security patches, and occasionally previously claimed features that wee not ready for release at product launch. In Apple's case, MARKETING CONSIDERATIONS have made upGRADES an annual event.

The problem with piecemeal fixes you seem to be promoting is they too easily end up creating "Frankenstein" software that is unmaintainable and unsupportable. If that is the environment you want then you do not want macOS or any version of Windows and would be better off sticking to a homebrew version of Unix/Linux where only you know what you have, and only you are qualified to work on it.

HUH??? I haven't I "promoted" anything!

ryck asked i.e., why are the pref pane and its options captioned "upDATE" when they also cover upGRADEs, and I've done no more than suggest what may be Apple's rationale.

What, specifically, is an update or upgrade has never been in question.