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Setting Up Multiple Mac's Like the Apple Store

N

nathanj.massey

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 16, 2006
21
0
Leeds UK
Hey guys,

I've got a MacBook, MacBook Air and 3 iMac's that all need to be set up so that they run similar to the Mac's in the Apple Store. I need them to run so that someone can use one of them, then the Mac automatically resets itself, getting rid of any changes the user has made, so when the next person uses it, they get a 'fresh' machine to try out.

If this isn't possible, could I set it up so that the Mac's reset when booting up, so the previous days changes are removed?

It would also be great if I could setup all of the programs and files that I want on all of the machines on the first machine, then somehow easily get that exact setup onto the other machines.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers, Nathan.
 
Assuming they all run Leopard, just log them in to the guest account. Open System Prefs -> Accounts, and enable the guest account. When you log out, all changes are wiped.
 
That is what i would use is the guest account
At my apartment my friends use the internet in guest
mode and it deletes everything they did
 
Is it possible with the guest account to set it up so that it automatically logs out after 5 minutes of no activity, then log back in ready for the next user?
 
nathanj.massey said:
Is it possible with the guest account to set it up so that it automatically logs out after 5 minutes of no activity, then log back in ready for the next user?
Click to expand...

Yes you can enable automatic logout (was enabled by default on 10.5.0), but 5 minutes is way too short. Someone could be using it, and got a phone call, get a coffee, or do something else and then it'll be annoying to see the account has logged out.
 
I think what i'm going to do is use the Guest account feature like you guys suggested, but customize it first as there is a lot of demo content and other changes I need to make to the standard guest account.

If anyone's intrested i'm following the instructions here.

So i'll log in the machines on a morning manually (is there a way to auto-login a guest account?), let people use the Mac's throughout the day, then when they get shut down on a night, they'll be ready for the next day.

All I need to do now is find a way of doing all of this customization of the guest account on one machine, then have the exact same setup on the other machines.

I looked into the 'Netboot' system, but it seems that it would be a viable solution as there isn't a central server for the machines to boot from.

I was thinking along the lines of doing the modifications on one machine, creating a disk image of the machine, then restoring the other machines from that image. Is that possible?
 
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