How to Screen Record during DEP Setup Assistant

By George Gonzalez

- 3 minutes read - 458 words

Screen Recording during Enrollment and setup.

We often have to create screen recordings for training, documentation or troubleshooting purposes. I was surprised at a mac admins meeting when someone asked how they should do it and using a cell phone to record was suggested. Yes, you could do that in a pinch, but the quality is not great, especially for training material or for a larger audience.

The other idea included video capture devices and external streaming hardware and software, like you would use for live streaming a gaming session. While this would work, it requires external hardware and additional software.

There is a much simpler solution that may work for the majority of scenarios.

Screen recording in a desktop session is simple, but when you need to record the entire setup process including, for example, a DEP enrollment then it gets trickier.

There are two ways I normally approach this.

Virtual Machine

Using the virtualization solution of your choice, you can create a macOS VM and then use a screen capturing tool to record the VM window during the setup process.

Screen Sharing and Physical hardware

Some virtualization tools don’t allow you to configure the VM to enroll in DEP by setting up the hardware serial number. In those cases, or when you just want to use physical hardware, you can use the screen sharing alternative.

The steps required are:

  • booting the target device
  • connecting to a network
  • enabling the “Screen Sharing” feature
  • connect via VNC from another device
  • record the screen using QuickTime Player, Dropbox Capture or any other screen capture method

Follow these instructions to enable screen recording during the Apple Setup process.

  • Power On device
  • Select Language
  • Select Region
  • Connect to a Wired or Wireless network
  • Hold down Command + Option + Control + T on the keyboard.
  • Once the Terminal is open click on the Apple icon and select System Settings
  • In System Settings select General > Sharing
  • In Sharing click the “i” and configure the service.
    • For this exercise, allow “All Users” to connect and “Anyone may request permission to control screen”.
    • Toggle the service on and note the IP address listed
  • From another device use Finder > Go > Connect to Server (Command + K) to connect to that IP Address
Sharing
Sharing

Once Screen Sharing is enabled on the target device, you can click “back” on the Setup Assistant screens to go back to the beginning and record the DEP process.

Check out my video for step-by-step instructions:

Breaking out of the Setup Assistant with the command + option + control + t (terminal) or + c (console) has many other uses, including troubleshooting the DEP process by streaming the MDM process logs.

That can be the topic of another post.

–GG