A heads-up on pairing remotes to Macs

Nov 20, '08 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: jdb8167

I just bought a new aluminum MacBook, and discovered that I couldn't get an IR remote control to pair with the notebook. This is optional, but it prevents other remotes from controlling your Mac.

If you go to the Security System Preferences panel, you'll find a Pair/Unpair button. Clicking on Pair brings up a message instructing you to press and hold the Menu and Next buttons on the remote until a "paired" icon appears.

I tried this several times with no luck. Finally, I found that you have to be running an admin account for this to work -- there is no indication that you can't pair from a non-administrator account. As a matter of fact, the panel is disabled until you click the lock and enter an admin account and password. But even after unlocking, you still can't pair from a standard account.

So if you have trouble pairing a new remote, make sure you log into an admin account first.

Comments (3)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20081116155928578