Loss of memory...

[Hansi R]

Hi Guys...
My iMac started to loose memory at an alarming rate each time I opened Safari. 8 Gigs would disappear within 60 seconds even though I had nothing open except Safari. I also had other bugs and problems with it so, as it was 5 years old I decided about 6 months ago to buy a new 27 inch iMac. During the set-up I transferred many things from the old iMac to the new one to save time and, at first everything was fine... then the same problems started up again! In the end I had to stop using safari and install Google Chrome. I'm presuming that I must have transferred the same bugs over onto the new model. I'm now thinking about restoring to factory settings and then setting up manually to make sure that I don't install the same bugs again. My question is... on my latest model I'm running OSX Yosemite 10.10.5 which I'm happy with. If I wipe the slate clean and re-install OSX can I stick with Yosemite or will it automatically install El Capitan? As far as I can tell, everyone seems to have problems with El Capitan so I would like to avoid it if possible. Is it possible to actually choose Yosemite again?
Many thanks, cheers, John

 

[honestone]

If you still have the file entitled "Install OS X Yosemite" somewhere on your machine (it is usually contained within the Applications folder), then you'll be able to use that file to do everything you want to do. If you don't have that file, I'm not sure that if you visit the App Store, that is the OS the App Store will "allow" you to download. It seems that when you purchased that new iMac 6 months ago, it already came pre-installed with Yosemite, OS 10.10.x (not sure which version it would have come with). Assuming you registered the machine to Apple, then there is a good to excellent possibility that you can get OS 10.10.5 from the App Store (assuming you do not have the "Install OS X Yosemite" file).

I am actually a little "uneducated" about the App Store and retrieving a version of the OS, as I always make a copy of the "Install OS X "whatever"" file right away in another location (actually, a couple of places). For example, I have the file "Install OS XS El Capitan" in a couple of locations external to my machines, so I can recover from that one (if I need to).

Maybe someone else with more intimate knowledge about this process can shed more light on it.

 

[Hansi R]

Thanks very much for your help honestone.... I do sometimes hang on to those "install' packages for a while but, you're right, this time Yosemite came installed with the new iMac so I'm not sure what will happen after restoring my new iMac to factory settings. Maybe it will automatically re-install the same, on the other hand it might automatically install the very latest that's on offer... mmm... have to wait and see if someone can shed some light on this... thanks again for your help, it's much appreciated, cheers John