I'm clearing out our warehouse where I work, and we have several old Macintosh Performas. Most of them, I got to boot up but they give some type of error about At Ease. I didn't start using Macintosh until OS 8, so I'm confused as to what At Ease was, and how to configure it? We are donating them to a local daycare that wants to use them for their smaller age kids. Is there any "old" websites that might have information about At Ease? Thanks!
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What was At Ease?
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It was Apple's first "Simple Finder" that was released in the early 90's.
You might want to start with Extensions Off (hold down Shift key) and then remove the At Ease stuff. Not real familiar with the workings, but I think it is an extension or control panel, though.
You might want to start with Extensions Off (hold down Shift key) and then remove the At Ease stuff. Not real familiar with the workings, but I think it is an extension or control panel, though.
At Ease was an old piece of software that acted as a parental-filter and launcher application. It would allow an administrator to restrict access so that the other users could only launch certain applications. What kind of error are you getting? I think that if you hold down shift on start-up, it'll override the At Ease extension, and let you into the system.
Actually, there were simpler application launchers going back at least to System 5 if not earlier. At Ease was a late player in the game. It was not so much a Finder substitute as it was a Finder cover that allowed certain users only highly restricted access to the Mac.emw said:
These days, we use the Accounts preference pane to set login options, set limits on what specific users can do, and, if we want, set users to use the Simple Finder interface. Under Mac OS 7, the equivalent was At Ease, or At Ease for Workgroups, and was a separately purchased and separately installed product. I think that under Mac OS 8 and 9, it was called Multiple Users and was a control panel.
Removing At Ease, even without the installation disks or At Ease password, wasn't hard. Boot off a CD and remove all items named anything with "At Ease" in them from the System folder.
Removing At Ease, even without the installation disks or At Ease password, wasn't hard. Boot off a CD and remove all items named anything with "At Ease" in them from the System folder.
I remember back in the day when my dad and I went to buy our family's first new Mac, a Quadra 610. While my old man was talking to the salesman, I wandered over to a Color Classic that was sitting on a desk in the corner. Fascinated by its small size, I started to play around with it and...WTF?...there was this At Ease program in my way. The only thing it would let me do was run Claris Works and watch a dumb animated tutorial. I vowed to find a way to get around it, especially since my dad bought a copy...
After getting our Quadra home I soon learned how to circumvent the program with the Extensions-off boot that others have described here, much to my dad's chagrin. Next time I was at the store, I intended to try it out, but I was too distracted by the new Power PC equipped machines that had just arrived.
After getting our Quadra home I soon learned how to circumvent the program with the Extensions-off boot that others have described here, much to my dad's chagrin. Next time I was at the store, I intended to try it out, but I was too distracted by the new Power PC equipped machines that had just arrived.
At Ease for Workgroups 3 had a setting to allow or disallow no-extensions booting. Sounds like yours was set to allow it, which as you learned permits you to defeat it.Lord Blackadder said:
Lord Blackadder said:
haha you sound just like me man, except our computer purchase was a Centris 650, and my dad didn'y buy a copy of At Ease, but it came on some demo CD