Application Has Exclusive Control

[thorntone]

HI. I'm an experienced WinTel guy, but am lost in the Mac world. My wife teaches, and has acquired a couple of Macs for her classroom that appear to be 3-5 years old, but she cannot use them as a single application has exclusive control. When they're booted, I see some icons at the bottom of the page, but they're inaccessible. Neither the keyboard nor mouse is operable at that time. At the tail end of the boot process, an application opens, and there is no way to exit from it, or otherwise access the computer.

Are there some tricks to be attempted during boot to get the normal system? Is there something comparable to a startup group or autoexec (or login.com or .profile for you VMS or Unix types) that I can change (and a way to change it)?

Thanks.

25 Kindergarten kids await your response!

 

[jimbopalmer]

the Icons during the Boot process are operating System Extensions, similar to Config.sys

If you hold down the SHIFT key during boot, it should skip these.

if you hold down C it will try to boot from CDROM, you could put a MacOS disk in and get control that way.

on the CD is a tools folder there will be utilities to format and to repair disks there

on the hard disk will be a System Folder, in it is a Startup folder, you may be able to empty the startup folder.

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[PTmon]

Sounds like it is running a program like AtEase or similar that protects it from kids deleting files and rendering the machines useless. There are also several other commercial applications which they could have installed for protection. IT would help if we knew what application was the one that was running. Does it offer the chance to log in as administrator anywhere?
PT

http://mahon.homeip.net/remember

 

[thorntone]

Thanks for the help. We tapped into a power greater than IT, the teacher grapevine. We soon found someone who knew someone, who knew... Anyway, the product was Kids Desk by Edmark, and there was a hidden administrative menu. Once found, I was able to set it up as needed.

Thanks Again.