Originally Posted By: jchuzi
Are you sure about the "machine specific" part? I thought that all these downloads were generic, as they would have to be in order to be installed on a variety of machines. I doubt that even Apple could afford the time and money to make specific versions for all the Macs that are out there. (And why bother?)

OS downloads (and possibly updates ) via Software Update ("updates") are usually machine-specific. So can be restore partitions.

HOWEVER.... if you go to the App Store and download Sierra from there, it will place "Install Mac OS X Sierra.app" into your apps folder, and THAT is universal.

Make a folder on your desktop, call it Sierra, and drag-move the installer app out of Applications into that. Launch disk utility, and do a File, New, Disk Image from Folder, and select that folder. Packs it up into a nice .DMG file, easy put on a flash drive for transport to another computer.

At the other end, just open the DMG right off the flash drive (don't copy the dmg), and drag-copy the app back into the Applications folder, and run it from there to install.

To make your USB drive a BOOTABLE installer, you need to do a little more work. Described well here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/2981585/...ller-drive.html
(instructions should work fine for sierra)

When I plug in this flash drive, it automagically mounts a DMG on it. (the installer is a bit of a russian doll) Not sure how they do that, but that's why you need to use those instructions. You CAN make a bootable installer much easier by just retiring the inner DMG to the flash drive, and it will boot, but will then need to DOWNLOAD the installer, somewhat defeating the purpose. The macworld link makes a standalone bootable installer that doesn't require internet access or any downloading.


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