Hey everyone! I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to Macs, having ditched the platform around the Yosemite days. My mom has an old Macbook Air from 2012 that's starting to fail, so I got her a new Macbook Air with the M3 processor. Overall, it seems nice, but a few features bother me, like the black notch and lack of a lit Apple logo.
When I reset the new Mac, it prompted me for an internet connection to activate macOS. This got me thinking back to when Bertrand Serlet joked about Windows activation years ago—what's changed? I'm curious about how to fully reset one of these new Macs without internet access, especially considering that my mother's company operates in an air-gapped environment where machines can never connect to the internet after their first boot. Any ideas?
1 Answer
Yes, the M3 Mac does require an internet connection to activate macOS after a reset. It's a bit of a hassle if you're in an environment where connectivity isn't available.
That’s what I figured. Is there any way to bypass this activation requirement or at least monitor the communications between the Mac and the server?