Yosemite over Lion is a chasm?!

My computer was running perfectly, what a fool I was to go for an upgrade (but, you know, after a while nothing will work with an older system). So, I installed Yosemite this afternoon over Lion. It's a disaster. Basically, nothing works, that blamed rainbow wait cursor takes a full minute to 2 minutes to open anything, including the apple menu!
I have no time right now to fool around with wiping the disk, or for finding a new OS X, no restore disk came with my 27-inch desktop Mac.

Does anyone have a solution? I saw in a search that turning off "file vault" and bluetooth might help, it takes so long to do anything at all on this computer that I despair of doing even that...though I will, if necessary.

I think I have everything in the cloud...at any rate, I have a laptop with my files on it, and Boxcryptor, too.

Please give me any ideas you have. I'm sorry to be such a sucker and to have trusted Apple

 

I'm not sure what you're asking.
You don't want to re-install? What do you mean finding a new OS X?

OS X has a built in recovery partition now, and also Internet recovery, hence why no media anymore.

Did you do a clean install or just upgraded current Lion?

My guess is your issues are related to a software issue and not necessarily this way because of Yosemite alone.

 

I did exactly as instructed on the download site, I downloaded yosemite, and I save the file, opened it and clicked install. It was over 5 gb. It took about half an hour. Then, when it reopened, I saw an ugly picture of yosemite (the real place), and the usual things that open when I have shut down and opened were trying to open. It took a very long time, and when I tried to click the close button on things that appeared (like Open Office), the wait cursor showed up for at least 2 minutes and I couldn't do anything else. When a folder opened, like Boxcryptor, the files inside did not appear for about 3 minutes, and then they weren't entirely visible (a white box where an image would be). I tried to get to iCloud, but, couldn't. So, I tried to restart...the apple menu wouldn't drop down for a long time, finally it did, and I was able to hit restart. The computer never fully shut down in the attempt to restart, a cursor remained on the screen...and so on.

By finding a new OS X, I meant that, if yosemite won't work and I don't want to go back to Lion, then I'd need to research another operating system between them.

This is the first time I've had to recover with no external disk, so, I need to look into doing that through internet recovery, I'm ignorant on that.
Also, I felt confident that yosemite would be no problem, since I had upgraded to it on my laptop and that went smoothly.

 

Can you post a link to this download site with the instructions?
Usually you get it in App Store or are you saying you got it in App store and ran the Install Yosemite application in the /Applications folder.

Can you still boot into this slow install?

More info on recovery mode: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4718

 

I did not take yosemite from the app store, I took it from download.com, I think.

It was the usual install routine, you take download the dmg to the desktop, double click it, then the install package (looks like a box) shows up, you double click that and then do the install. I have installed very many files since I began using computers when they first came out with hard drives. I went to the app store first and found many things related to yosemite, apps that could be added, etc, but, yosemite was not in the forefront and I thought it would be simpler to grab the free program from download.com.

Yes, I can boot from that impaired yosemite system. I'm thinking that, if I can be sure my vital files that are on that computer alone (including the drivers for my older printer and scanner), it would be easy to wipe the drive and begin again...I could side-by-side my laptop, make the laptop (working perfectly with the yosemite system) the master and let the desktop with the problem be the slave...take what I need, get out, and begin.

 

I a really unhappy with Yosemite. For one thing my Epson NX230 scanner doesn't work with Yosemite - no software. My only option is Image Capture and I'm finding that difficult to use

 

Well, I had to wipe the drive and reinstall yosemite. I lost hours to the job of reconstructing my setup...I'm not through yet...because I just need to be working when I'm on that computer, not fooling around with configuring (finding!) my old programs...and this "upgrade" was definitely a disaster. Apple provides drivers for any device you hook up that doesn't have one...I'm not delighted with the substitutes Apple gave me for my old Canon scanner and printer, but, though they don't have all the capabilities the lost ones had, they do work.

 

FYI, these drivers are delivered by Apple but they are still made and provided by the printer manufacturers.
It's up to the manufacturers if they want to provide up-to-date and fully featured drivers.

 

You can go to Epson's site and grab there software over the basic options they provide to Apple.

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?oid=182103&infoType=Downloads

Looks like they have scanner software so you don't have to use Image Capture.

 

I had already found drivers for my older Canon printer and scanner at Canon, they were not as good as the originals, so, I uninstalled and tried the drivers Apple provided, they were pretty much of the same quality of the ones I gave up...the ones that were lost in the aborted Yosemity upgrade are simply not available now.

Well, eventually, I'll buy a new combo printer/scanner and will have a jazzy/snazzy driver for it, LOL. Thanks!!