Clarification regarding Preview Builds

The developer notes say:

"If an installation of OS X v10.11 Developer Beta 4 fails, try installing again, or install the OS X El Capitan Developer Beta 4 Recovery Update and use OS X Recovery. More information about OS X Recovery is available here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314."

There's no download in the link for an OSX recovery tool I could find. The original Beta 1 had a broken recovery update tool - and somebody here posted a link to the updated recovery tool that works. However, the beta 2 recovery tool downloaded beta 1 - which didn't have an ability to upgrade to beta 3 without another link that was posted here, and then beta 3 could be downloaded from app store or another download. Anyways..

I hope there's a new recovery tool! If anybody knows the link - posting it would be greatly appreciated.

For 10.10 it was DP1, DP5, DP7 and GM1 as full installers.

You get a new redemption code for new full installers.

If the code you have is not new, you will not get a new full installer, just the old one and then after installing you can update sequentially.

Obviously as the number of DPs increase this becomes more difficult and apple may choose to simplify things by releasing new full installers.

Another advantage of a full installer is that if you make a bootable usb you can make a clean install thereby eliminating any left-over bugs from older systems you had there before.

Check if the code for El Capitan DP4 is the same as before. If so, you will get DP1 and have to do the delta updates. If it is a different code you will get a full installer for DP4.

You don't have to do this, but I copy my codes into a textedit file so I can compare old ones with new ones to see if I can get a new full installer.

Thanks - sounds like I just misremembered. Here's to DP5 (hopefully!) - as an admin (not a coder) testing the upgrade path is more my focus and having the full installer lets me better approximate that.

I just checked my code. Same as DP1 code. So so far there is no DP4 full installer.

Sometimes the full installers take longer to get up on the server than the deltas because they are so much bigger. So I'll check again in a few hours. if it is not there with a new code we'll have to look again when DP5 comes out.

For now though I'm getting the DP4 delta update and firmware update for El Capitan with the direct links in this thread: https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/11801

Do you know if the firmware automatically updates when installing the next version from the app store? I assume it does - but it's never mentinoed

There have been firmware updates for every build since the 10.10.2 betas. They download at the same time as the delta or combo (but there won't be an el capitan combo till the first 10.11.2 beta).

Unless there is a standalone firmware update these firmware updates don't show up in the mac app store. So if that is all you look at you may not know they are downloading. But if you look in your /Library/Updates folder after downloading but before installing you will see a folder with numbers there and if you open it you will see both the os x updater file as well as a firmware update package. Upon installation these delete themselves. This is one reason I prefer to get them from direct links instead of the mac app store.

Is it possible to jump from DP1 to DP4 - or do we have to go through each DP in sequential order?

You have to do it this way:

DP1 to DP2 to DP3 to DP4.

DP2, DP3 and DP4 are delta updates not combos.

Apple may simplify this later by releasing another full installer, maybe for DP5 which will not require any of the previous builds to be installed.

The first combo will be for the first beta for 10.11.2.

Looks like there is a new code for DP7 - thanks Apple!