I upgraded my mac to Mavricks, but it turned out that one of my important applications doesn't run under it. I would like to install Mountain lion in parallels for that app. However, there is no Mountain lion recovery partition on the mac anymore. I have the 'Install OS X Mountain lion.app' in my applications folder. Is this doable at all?
What application is the problem? I assume it's on the Windows side. Windows 7 or 8? I'm running Mavericks with Parallels 8.x AND the 32bit version of Windows (mainly because I have at least one Windows program that only runs with the 32bit version.)
Open the App Store, then go to the Purchased section. You should see old OSes such as Lion and Mountain Lion available as downloads. Click the download button for Mountain Lion. You will receive a pop-up message about "do you really want to install this?" Say "Yes" and the download will start. Once the download is complete you will get another pop-up message telling you that you cannot install the software on your system. That's okay. Because now if you look in your Applications folder, you will have an app called "Install OS X Mountain Lion.app." Open Parallels and create a new virtual machine. Pick the DVD/Disk image option. Then pick the option that allows you to select the software installer. Then you can locate and use the install app. Somewhere along the way it will ask for a name for the new VM. Call it "OS X (Mountain Lion)" or something like that. You should be set.
