Macbook Pro 2010 notebooks came pre-installed with Snow Leopard (10.6) Mac OSX.
As of Dec. 2017, very little popular software will work or update on anything older than Mavericks (10.9):
- Several popular chat programs no longer work – Skype app, GotoMeeting, Google Hangouts
- No major browsers are supported
- Even Apple updates require 10.8 or higher – for now.
The best way to update Mac OS is to use the Apple softwareupdate command line interface (CLI) tool:
- Confirm you have 2 GB RAM and 8 GB free disk space.
- Close all open applications, including Textedit.app files
- Backup your files. If the in-place update fails, you may have to wipe and do a fresh install
- plug your charger in and connect to a reliable WiFi hotspot, or find a tutorial on creating a USB update media
- open Terminal.app and run these commands to find out what updates are available, and then apply the updates:
softwareupdate -lsoftwareupdate -ia
Otherwise you need to register with the App Store using a credit card to use Software Update. Expect 10 or more reboots.
Note that many users have complained of update issues including failure to boot and very slow operation on hard disks. It is possible to downgrade later, but there’s no guarantee that your data will be ok. So backup your files first!
Troubleshooting
- If the install window closes and you want to retry running the installer, open the Applications folder in Finder and click on “Install macOS High Sierra”.
- After the installer is downloaded you will not be able to see the update label name in
softwareupdate -l - An error dialog saying “The recovery server cannot be contacted.” means a network connection error or clock setting error that causes SSL certificate problems.