We’re liking the looks of Mac OS 10.7 Lion, but it’s a little annoying that you can only get it through the Mac App Store. It turns out, however, that there’s a pretty easy, if unsanctioned, way to burn it to a DVD.
If you want to perform a clean install of Lion, or throw it on a Hackintosh, you’re going to need a physical disc—none of this Mac App Store craziness. Luckily, there’s an image file hidden inside the Lion installer package that you can burn do a DVD for just such an emergency. Obviously, you’ll need to wait until Lion is released, but once it is, just:
- Download Lion from the Mac App Store. The installer should show up in your Applications folder.
- Right-click on the installer and hit “Show Package Contents”. Navigate to Contents > SharedSupport and look for a file called “InstallESD.dmg”.
- Right-click on the DMG and burn it with Disk Utility, or use a program like Burn. When you’re done, you should be able to install it on a computer from a DVD like you normally would.
There’s no telling what might change between now and Lion’s release, but for now it looks like this is a pretty solid method of getting Lion on your computer the old-school way. Hit the link to read more.
How to Burn an OS X Lion Boot Disc | TIME.com