As some of us learned in the last week, it’s easy to uninstall a troublesome Rapid Security Response (RSR). Several naturally asked why that isn’t possible with a macOS update, pointing out that it was available and worryingly popular between High Sierra and Catalina 10.15.2, since when the ability has been lost.
The answer is as straightforward as you’d expect: the updates themselves, as well as the update process, have become more complicated than they used to be, and rollback would be difficult to implement.
As such, the advice for those unhappy with a new macOS version is as simple as it is disruptive:
For those who decide that they want to roll back a macOS update on an Apple silicon Mac, by far the simplest procedure is to back the Mac up fully, put it into DFU mode, use Configurator 2 to restore the IPSW image for the previous version of macOS including its firmware, then to migrate the backup to that fresh boot disk. That also caters for all problems that may have arisen with the update.
Apple always moves forwards, never backwards – even when you might want to.
I miss the days when Mac OS X had the “Archive and Install” option when the system was borked.
And people wonder why the Mac never Quite cuts into enterprise. Having administered a fleet of Apple machines, the idea that it could wipe out multiple users who need physical assistance to restore to a working system is insane. Especially in a more remote working world! Suddenly the company has workers who are out of commission for at least a day as they require technical staff to run the restores.
Try explaining to the CEO “it’s ok, you lost all of today’s work because we have to use yesterday’s backup.. oh you were traveling and your last backup was last week? Yeaaaaahhh…. Apple like to roll forward… So it’s ok…”