Briefly- G4 sitting unused for 2+ years that had been stupidly encrypted. So much music on it that not enough space was left to de-encrypt. Solution from Apple, reinstall original operation disk. This basically took an old computer and set it back another 2 years.

Result- basic operation seems fine, however YouTube won't play, not will other sites needing Flash.

It seems that in the preceding years changes have been made. Internet inquiries mentioned problems with OS 10.3 and newer versions of Flash, and that upgrading to 10.4 was the answer.

OS 10.4 was down loaded, and seemingly loaded onto the sickly G4. Still no YouTube and when checking what system the machine is running, 10.3 is shown.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The rules of this forum don't allow piracy. You mention that you torrented an OS X version.

You should have the original restore disks - they could be older than 10.4 though.

If the original restore discs were not 10.4 then you need to buy 10.4 - Apple does not sell it directly anymore, plenty of other sites are still selling it though.

Yes, original disks are 10.3. Did not consider the "piracy" to be an issue (removed mention in my post) because as you mention, Apple no longer sells 10.4.

Your recommendation to use disks strikes me as the only way though. Thanks for the advice and the hand slap.

If you are thinking of using 10.4 restore discs instead of retail 10.4 discs then you might want to take a look at the following. Apple - Support - Discussions - Can I use another Mac's system restore ...

As Apple no longer sells 10.4 or 10.5 directly the prices for remaining copies of these at other sites like eBay and Amazon have sky-rocketed.

As long as your G4 is over 800MHz (most that shipped with 10.3 on restore discs meet this requirement) you should be able to install 10.5 (which might be easier/cheaper to find than 10.4)