After you’ve received and unboxed your new MacBook Pro, the first thing you’re required to do is, setup your device to get it up and running. The setup process requires your manual intervention where you choose your settings as per your daily personal or professional tasks.
Here’s how you can setup your new MacBook Pro before you can begin using it:
- ■Plug in and power on
Plug in your MacBook Pro to a power outlet, and press the Power button (Eject button on the new devices at the time of this writing). This powers on your device ensuring that it doesn’t run out of battery during the setup. If your MacBook Pro was delivered to you via courier, it may not have enough battery to complete the entire setup process, and plugging it to a power supply would charge the battery along with keeping your device from shutting down abruptly while setting up.
■Choose your country
Click to select your region from list on the Welcome screen (United States for this example), and click Continue. This sets the selected country as your current region, and lets you set up your MacBook Pro accordingly. If needed, you can change these settings from the System Preferences > Language & Region window later.
■Choose keyboard layout
Select your preferred keyboard layout in the Select Your Keyboard window (U.S. for this example), and click Continue. This sets the keyboard layout you are most familiar with on your MacBook Pro. Depending on the region you selected in the previous step, this window displays the most appropriate layouts you’re likely to use. If you want to choose a different layout, check the Show All box, and locate and select your preferred one from the detailed list that appears.
■Choose your network type
Select your network type (Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or none) on the How Do You Connect window (Local network (Ethernet) in this example), and click Continue. This tell your MacBook Pro how do you want to connect to the network. Depending on the option you choose here, you will be displayed with the corresponding windows to set up your network connection.
Note: Your MacBook Pro would most likely present you with the Select Your Wi-Fi Network window where you can choose your preferred wireless connection. However, due to some hardware limitations, the computer may prompt you to choose your preferred network type (as in this example).
■Set up your network
Select your preferred IP addressing method from the TCP/IP Connection Type drop-down list (Manually for this example), enter the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS servers’ address(es) in their corresponding fields, and click Continue. This lets your MacBook Pro connect to other computers within the local area network (LAN), and if a router is present, to the Internet as well. If you chose Wi-Fi network type in the previous step, you may not have to enter this information manually as most of the time the Wi-Fi routers are configured to assign the IP addresses automatically via their built-in DHCP server. That said, if you are displayed with the Select Your Wi-Fi Network window, merely selecting your wireless network, and entering its passkey is all that is required to connect your MacBook Pro to the network and Internet.
■Data privacy information
Carefully read Apple’s data privacy policy on the Data & Privacy window, and click Continue. This helps you understand how Apple uses your data it collects when you use your MacBook Pro. Collecting data from your device is important as it helps Apple improve its upcoming products, and fix the bugs in the existing one. The fixes are released by Apple from time to time in the form of updates.
■Data transfer and restoration
Select the From a Mac, Time Machine backup, or startup disk, From a Windows PC, or Don’t transfer any information now radio button on the Transfer Information to This Mac window, and click Continue. Depending on the selection you make, this lets you transfer files from the startup disk or a different Mac computer to this one, restore data from a Time Machine backup, transfer files from a Windows computer, or set up your MacBook Pro as a new device (selected for this example) respectively.
■Sign in with Apple ID
Enter your Apple ID in the Apple ID field in Sign In with Your Apple ID window, click Continue, enter the password in the Password field, and click Continue. This automatically signs you in to various apps and services that require your Apple ID e.g. iCloud, iMessages, etc. If you don’t want to sign in with your Apple ID now, you can click Sign Up Later on the window, and sign in to the services individually later from within your Mac operating system (macOS High Sierra at the time of this writing). If you don’t have an Apple ID, you can click Create new Apple ID, and follow the on-screen instructions from there to get one.
■Accept the license terms
Read the license terms carefully on the Terms and Conditions window, click Agree, and click Agree again in the box that pops up from the top. By doing so, you confirm that you agree to the terms of using the Apple device. Unless you agree to the license terms, the setup wouldn’t proceed.
■Create a user account
Populate all the mandatory fields (and the optional ones too if you want) with the correct information on the Create a Computer Account window, and click Continue. This creates a new user account for you to log in to your MacBook Pro running macOS High Sierra. The user account created here has the admin privileges, i.e. you can use this account to make any changes to the operating system such as downloading and installing apps from App Store, changing the date and time, creating new user accounts or removing them, etc.
■Finalize the setup
Click Continue on the Express Set Up window. This sets up your MacBook Pro with the most commonly used configurations, and takes to the desktop screen from where you can begin using your computer. If you don’t want to have default settings on your computer, click Customize Settings on the Express Set Up window, and follow the on-screen instructions from there to customize the settings as needed.
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