my friend has a 2011 MacBook pro and has never updated her operating system.

she is running osx lion 10.7.5

if she wants to get high sierra what does she need to do?

 

I'm no expert, from my experience i think she needs to buy snow leopard then free update to High Sierra.

if so where to buy snow leopard?  its a boxed disk package correct?

 

shops she has spoken too don't have snow leopard or talk about formatting and stuff, which i dont understand and seems drastic.

 

I'm just one VERY basic mac guy trying to help a know nothing mac person.

 

any input would be gratefully received, thanks

No, you don't need to buy anything. Update should automatically take you from Lion to the lastest Sierra update.

 

I bought my MacAir with Lion, back in 2011. One time I had some trouble with an update, and guess what I had to do after formatting. I had to start off all over again from Lion as that is what came with the computer and you don't get shortcuts. I had to first install Lion, and then update to Yosemite, which was the latest OS X at that time.

 

I apologize if they have changed the procedure now as this is what I had to do back in 2015.

Edited August 5, 20187 yr by tropo

Actually, no. She has to go to El Capitan first.

 

https://itunes.apple.com/app/os-x-el-capitan/id1147835434

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206886

 

Then you can move to High Sierra.

Have you actually tried to install High Sierra directly? http://appstore.com/mac/macoshighsierra

 

It's a free upgrade. You only need to move to El Capitan if the App Store link to High Sierra informs you that you need at least 10.8.

 

Don't neglect to back up her data using Time Machine beforehand.

 

Then you can do the upgrade via the App Store or create installation media on a USB Flash drive; https://blog.trendmicro.com/how-to-upgrade-mac-to-macos-high-sierra/