support desk staff would get a ticket to ‘do some simple remote admin stuff’ on a Mac, only to find that on starting that session task, they could only view, not do? A metaphorical breaker, crashing in on a tide of pain surfed by the many remote desktop responders out there.įor Macs not set up right for TeamViewer (as in my case), how many unsuspecting I.T. When the session ended, I actually had a bit of a moment. Talk about the perfect use case for a demo of Admin By Request right there! How fortunate for me, that this customer demo was all about how to use and observe the benefits of our Admin By Request Local Admin elevation solution!? My suitably impressed trial user used Admin By Request to self-elevate, fix TeamViewer, and soon I was not just in, but on. Local Admin! The very thing you are likely to need when remoting in to do something for your user! Sounds easy enough, right?īut here’s the killer. To get remote control working now, you first need to edit Security Preferences > Privacy and tick a box. It turns out that, due to a fantastic new security feature in Mojave, TeamViewer QuickSupport isn’t that quick anymore. And did I recoil in horror after reading the top hit!?! I could ‘view’ but i could not ‘do’.Īfter trying various disconnection / re-connection / rebooting shenanigans, and with the customer still hanging, I did what all good pros do and resorted to a quick Google. Once you get allowed in, you get full control. Unlike other screen sharing apps, with TeamViewer you don’t need to ask the other side to give you control of mouse and keyboard after session start. I got ready to take the customer through some of the Mac functionality of our Admin By Request Privileged Access Management software, and after TeamViewer Quick Support session opened, I suddenly realised after clicking the mouse furiously… I had… no control. This has always been a bullet proof, plugin free, remote control solution. For these tasks, I like to use TeamViewer’s extremely handy ‘Quick Support’ system. The customer was running Mac OS 10.14 Mojave, and wanted a bit of a ‘share and learn’. Today I made what was supposed to be a straight forward pre-sales call. On that intro-backdrop, let’s jump to the inspiration for this blog. Unbox that directive, Mac-heads!!!! TeamViewer on Mac OS Mojave: you do… I view! Just like us PC users, the Mac user no longer gets the luxury of Local Admin. Newsflash! There is no special opt-out for the Mac User! In terms of security compliance, it is most definitely NOT a case of ‘Thinking Different’. Security conscious organisationsations know that to pass audit, everyone needs to adhere to ‘ The principle of least privilege’. Whether you or running Windows or Mac, there are still standards of security frameworks to comply with such as UK Government ‘Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001. The problem is though, today, when it comes to network security, it’s no longer OK to say “ Let’s just leave the Macs” anymore. Users of the sleek silver slithers may feel like they work on their own little islands, but for the IT staff managing them, these islands are no paradise, more like purgatory! Security auditors: they don’t do ‘different’ Your typical ‘Windows educated IT staff still views the workplace Mac with a general sense of ‘dis-location, with a tinge of envy’. That said, Macs are still very much in the minority. It’s no longer the case of there being ‘just one annoying guy’ either. Today, at FastTrack Software, I am regularly supporting customers that run Mac OS. When Windows 10 arrived, I was relieved to go back to ‘Bill’s best OS yet. The Mac OS user experience had become not a whole lot that ‘Different’ from that of a PC. No viruses or malware, lightning fast start-up times, rock solid reliability, no pre-loaded bloat-ware and no late night quarterly Windows re-installs.Ī decade of mass-consumerisation later (with a proliferation of iClouds and Garage Bands etc), MacOS lost its sleekness. I admit, back in 2005, I was the one in our office that decided to ‘ Think Different’ and be ‘ the annoying guy with the Mac.’ It wasn’t about computer snobbery (honest), for me, ‘ Different’ meant cutting through the daily PC treacle, getting stuff done.
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