System control panel

The Mac has no central equivalent of the System window on a Windows PC. But its functions have analogs here:

  • General tab. To find out your Mac OS X version number and the amount of memory on your Mac, choose →About This Mac.

  • Computer Name tab. Open System Preferences, click Sharing, and edit your computer’s network name here.

  • Hardware tab. The closest thing the Mac has to the Device Manager is System Profiler (in your Applications→Utilities folder).

  • Advanced tab. In Mac OS X, you can’t easily adjust your virtual memory, processor scheduling, or user profile information.

  • System Restore tab. Mac OS X’s Time Machine feature is like System Restore on steroids; see Chapter 5.

  • Automatic Updates tab. Choose →Software Updates.

  • Remote tab. Mac OS X offers remote control in the form of Screen Sharing, described in Chapter 14.

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