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Apple
BootPicker... With the advent of Boot Camp comes the possibility of deploying multi-boot Macs and permitting your end users to choose whichever platform will work best for whatever they'd like to do at the moment. But how do you manage the presentation of this choice? There are a couple concerns to keep in mind:
- Setting the boot device is an activity restricted to administrative users.
- Allowing non-administrative users access to this functionality potentially allows them to set the boot device to some external media that they provide (then they can really tamper with
What's New
Version 2.1.2: Added some accessibility features. VoiceOver and keyboard interaction are now supported.
Requirements
Intel, Mac OS X 10.4 or later, Intel Mac.
Intel, Mac OS X 10.4 or later, Intel Mac.
BootPicker User Discussion (Write a Review)
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BootPicker... With the advent of Boot Camp comes the possibility of deploying multi-boot Macs and permitting your end users to choose whichever platform will work best for whatever they'd like to do at the moment. But how do you manage the presentation of this choice? There are a couple concerns to keep in mind:
- Setting the boot device is an activity restricted to administrative users.
- Allowing non-administrative users access to this functionality potentially allows them to set the boot device to some external media that they provide (then they can really tamper with the system).
- Leaving the machine at the EFI boot picker (hold down the option key at startup), while possible, leaves the previous options open and also leaves the machine in a state in which it cannot be managed or accessed via the network. rEFIt allows you to lock down the boot options at startup, however you're still unable to actually manage the machine in this state.
- Must work when a firmware password is applied to the machine
- The boot picker cannot interfere with remote administration (e.g. via ARD)
- The boot picker must allow the administrator to specify explicitly which drives are permitted as boot devices
- The administrator can disable (remotely) the boot picker at any time
- When the machine is rebooted, it will always boot to Mac OS X by default and present the boot picker
- Optionally, the boot picker preferences can be managed via directory services (permits management at a large scale)
- Optionally, the boot picker should allow the administrator to provide some guidance to the end user about why they should choose one OS over another
Before developing BootPicker, I came up with a list of requirements that I would insist upon were I to manage a lab of dual-boot Macs:
BootPicker satisfies all of these requirements. BootPicker runs on startup immediately prior to LoginWindow. Based upon your configuration, it presents an option to the end user to choose an operating system. Upon choosing that OS, the machine either continues to Mac OS X or reboots to the specified OS. The next time the computer is rebooted, it automatically returns to Mac OS X and the boot picker. Finally, for environments that require management at a large scale, or management while the machines are turned off or booted to a different OS, BootPicker can be managed via a Mac OS X Server Open Directory Master. Got AD? That's OK, you can leverage that as well. You can even run BootPicker from a logout script to give every new visitor to your lab machines the opportunity to choose their OS without rebooting.
BootPicker is free as in beer and free as in speech. That means there's no charge to use it and even the source code is available. If you'd like to tweak, modify, localize, or just peek at the source code to BootPicker, you can browse the source here or download via subversion as indicated at the Bombich Software Sourcecode Repository.
Copyright © 2012 MacUpdate LLC
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Lance_baker reviewed on 30 Aug 2010
Unfortunately, BootPicker is no better. This is the most useless piece of software I have ever seen. It does not change the actual ROM setting for startup. It always boots to OS X first, and presents a picker screen just before user login should appear. Even when I am in Windows, and use BootCamp control panel to choose to boot to OS X, this thing STILL halts the startup of OS X and presents its cotton picking picker screen. That is no better than holding the option key.
For those of us needing OS X to have write support for a Windows 7 partition, NTFS-3G needs to add a System Preferences pane like that of "NTFS For Mac" that allows you to choose the writable NTFS partition with Windows 7 as the startup. Until that happens, NTFS For Mac is the best method of having NTFS write support AND a fairly elegant way to set the startup disk.
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Leaving the machine at the EFI boot picker (hold down the option key at startup), while possible, leaves the previous options open and also leaves the machine in a state in which it cannot be managed or accessed via the network.
This clearly shows he knows about the option key, but wants more functionality than that. Whether a single user needs that is open for debate, but clearly he is talking about managing the boot-up of several Macs in a lab environment.
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"Intel-based Macintosh computers can be protected by firmware passwords as well. The firmware in an Intel-based computer uses Extended Firmware Interface (EFI) technology-Open Firmware is used in computers that use PowerPC processors.
All Intel-based Macintosh computers support firmware password protection."
Read entire article here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106482
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A J Benamu reviewed on 02 May 2007
I've already tried:
a) holding in Option key and choosing Mac - BootPicker loads after Mac login window appears..
b) logging into Windows, and choosing "Boot into Mac" from BootCamp..
weftech rated on 17 Jan 2012