Is Leopard a can of worms?

Question

Is Leopard a can of worms? If I had known what it would not do, I would never have upgraded.
For example, I cannot open any photographs in Photoshop anymore because I have Photoshop 7, and Leopard will not open it. Upgrade Photoshop? Why would I have to do that when Photoshop 7 does everything I want?
I spent hours putting my music into the i-tunes library and then dividing the music into Playlists. I have hundreds of classical and modern music in i-tunes. After Leopard, all of the Playlists I made do not have any of the music or tunes I put into them. They are empty. When I first tried to open i-tunes I received the message “the i-tunes library cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of i-tunes.” How is that possible? I tried several times with the same result. Then I went to a separate hard disk that I had with the music saved and opened i-tunes. I was then able to access the library but still all of the Playlists I had made are empty.
I have 3,000 plus family names in a genealogy file with charts and information about each family. None of this can be opened because Leopard says “Cannot open because Classic
Environment no longer supported.” Some comment was made in this forum that you should be upgrading so Classic is not longer needed. These files were prepared years ago with programs that no longer exist so upgrading is impossible.
Why does everyone continue to say always backup so it will not be lost. What they overlook is that backup is no good if you cant open the backup. All of the backups I have on CDs and two separate hard disks for my genealogy files are useless because they cannot be opened with Leopard.
I have always had a very high regard for Apple. I started with Apple computers when they first started making them and switched to a PC only because there were some programs I needed that Apple did not support. A little over a year ago I went back to Apple and bought a 20” IMac with Panther. Within 30 days Apple came out with Tiger, but there was no recourse for those who had bought the Panther version even though there was no warning that Panther would be obsolete within 30 days.
Am I missing something here? Are the additions that Leopard provides worth the loss of the files I use and need?
Is there any solution to these problems? Or do I have to go back and try to reinstall Panther? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Welcome to Apple Discussions. Please take what follows as being offered in a good, but realistic spirit....
- Adobe posted information about its applications' compatibility before Leopard was released. Photoshop 7 is about five years old. There have been three major upgrades to Photoshop since 2002. It's reasonable to expect that Photoshop 7 would not continue to work indefinitely. You are fortunate, however, that the ~$199 upgrade to CS3 is available to users of Photoshop 7.
- iTunes 7.4.2 was available for Tiger, as well, so chances are that your issue is unrelated to Leopard. Hopefully, the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files from your Tiger installation are backed up. You should post about this in the appropriate iTunes forum.
- The genealogy software issue is unfortunate, but it hasn't exactly been a secret that Classic support would be lost in 10.5. In any event, compatibility with third-party software should be sorted out before upgrading an OS, not after.
A little over a year ago I went back to Apple and bought a 20” IMac with Panther.
Tiger has been out for well over two years. Like Leopard, there was no surprise about when it was going to be released.
Am I missing something here? Are the additions that Leopard provides worth the loss of the files I use and need?
Honestly, these are questions that need to be asked before upgrading an OS, not after.
Is there any solution to these problems? Or do I have to go back and try to reinstall Panther? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Go out and buy yourself an external hard drive for $100-200 and reinstall Panther for situations in which Leopard doesn't work for you.
Good luck!