Get the "out of the box" experience with an older Mac

By Dave Caolo

Here is a tip that I will definitely make use of myself. I often get older Macs working again for people I know. While my recepients are always happy to get a spiffy older Mac that's ready to go, I know how nice it is to enjoy the experience of plugging in a spankin' new Mac for the first time. The introductory movie, the initial account setup, the network setup and so on. How do I set up a "new" Mac with all current updates and the user's third party software, yet still allow them to enjoy the new Mac experience? Dave at The Consultant has the answer.

He writes, "...open the Terminal and delete the AppleSetupDone file, which will cause the Apple Setup Assistant to run on the next boot." The Terminal commands look like this:

loki:~$ cd /private/var/db/loki:/private/var/db$ ls -la .AppleSetupDone--w----r--   1 root  wheel  0 Jul 16  2004 .AppleSetupDoneloki:/private/var/db$sudo rm .AppleSetupDonePassword:

Now shut the machine down, and the next time it's booted, it will run through the introductory process. Nice tip, Dave.
 

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