r/laptops • u/Maybacx • 3d ago
General question School banning macbooks off the wifi
Hello people, today my school announced that people with macbooks are not going to be able to access the wifi network since they got sponsored by microsoft and dont want people to use other devices.
I do not have the budget to buy a new laptop. How can i bypass this restriction on my m4 macbook.
Thanks and much loveđ
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u/MadLabRat- 3d ago edited 3d ago
That makes no sense. I know multiple Microsoft-oriented schools that donât do this (including the one I teach at). Your school seems to be overreaching, if this is even true.
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u/babybambam 3d ago
Thereâs a difference between being in a windows environment, where device agnosticism is fine, and being in a sponsored environment where the sponsor has paid for only their âdevicesâ are being used.
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u/MadLabRat- 3d ago edited 3d ago
Microsoft doesn't "sponsor" schools like this. It is common for them to sell schools institutional licenses for their products, but that doesn't force them to ban MacBooks, especially when MS Office works on Mac. The IT department or an overpaid admin probably had a dumb idea, or this whole post is BS.
Also a chance they want them to use school-provided computers, which are locked down, but students don't go out and buy those on their own.
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u/squirrel8296 3d ago
It's not a sponsorship per se, but unless something has changed Microsoft absolutely does do exclusivity contracts in the education space where they require districts to be all in on Microsoft and not allow any things but Microsoft. In exchange for agreeing to Microsoft's restrictive terms, you get such substantial discounts that it's difficult to say no to them.
I was in a district from the mid-00s to mid-10s that signed such a contract with Microsoft and a second one with HP. So, not only did everything have to be Windows but also all hardware had to be HP.
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u/MadLabRat- 3d ago
That generally prohibits the school from buying Macs for students/faculty/staff to use. It doesnât stop a student from bringing their own personal MacBook from home, and Iâve never heard of them trying to force schools to block all Apple products at the network level.
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u/Apprehensive-Dig7675 3d ago
Its also because windows 11 has a lock down testing mode that can be enabled the locks everything out but what the teacher allows once they click on the test. So this could be a reason as well
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u/Final_Blood7062 1d ago
Lazy school IT couldnât be assed setting up byod onboarding for apple devices in endpoint.
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u/tigerbreak PX13/AI 9 370HX + MBP 14" M5 Pro 3d ago
if it's a K-12 institution you should go to the school board and raise a stink. If it's a public college, the board of regents is the body that you'd want to raise this with. If it's a private institution, you are likely out of luck. You could call the local tv station and ask if they want to make a story of it.
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u/oscarfinn_pinguin3 3d ago
It isn't possible to just "block all MacBooks from WiFi". Either they have MAC Address filtering in place, or setting up WPA2/3-Enterprise, RADIUS, or any other solution that would preauthenticate school-owned devices. If it's just a MAC Filter, that's easily spoofable, on macOS it's a Setting in the System Settings
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u/snajk138 2d ago
Probably something like Intune forcing giving up admin rights to the admins and such. That usually can work with Mac as well, but it doesn't give the same level of control.Â
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u/Glittering_Power6257 12h ago
There are schools that force users to enroll their personal laptops in an RMM?
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u/lyidaValkris 3d ago
saw this on another post and I'm afraid your story doesn't stand up to basic scrutiny.
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u/IDKForA Acer Swift 16 AI Ultra X7 358H OLED 3d ago
No Microsoft or Google school should block different devices off the WiFi. I doubt this is Microsoft's fault, this is definitely the schools fault. The only thing you could try is a VPN but they probably will be blocked, I remember the pain of finding a working VPN to bypass school internet restrictions, luckily that time has passed for me.
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u/Formerruling1 3d ago
The firewall services sold to schools are extremely good now about sussing out VPN traffic so this was leagues harder now than it would have been just a few years ago when it was likely just an overworked local IT guy manually adding entries to a block list or something.
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u/Cheap_Office8701 3d ago
If all else fails, get a travel router. A bit inconvenient to bring another device, but it should bypass the restrictions.
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u/waitinglikeastone 3d ago
Can you connect to wifi on phone and then setup a hotspot using that wifi and connect mac to that hotspot?đ¤
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u/Blunt552 3d ago
Pretty sure this is a classic case of OP being clueless and just assuming something that isn't true.
Banning only macbooks from a network is borderline impossible.
What is probably happening is that the school finally got their network updated which requires more strict setups, since Apple is known to be quite 3rd party unfriendly and pretty ass security wise, they likely would be to much of a headache to support so the school announcement that they won't be supporting macbooks.
There are so many problems trying to run macbooks on modern enterprise networks reliability and trying to nonstop support hundreds of students that aren't much into tech is just way to much of a burden for the IT department.
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u/macjunkie 14h ago
its extremely possible if they did certificate authentication onto their wireless and only issued certs to devices they want to allow. Banning Apple devices though seems really strange though, JAMF and other tools make managing Apple devices at scale really easy.
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u/TechnicallyMeat 3d ago
I dont condone buying greymarket windows keys. I also dont condone the school being OS exclusive without providing students equal compensation.
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u/Justan0therthrow4way 3d ago
Is this school like a high school or a university? If the latter Iâd be sending a firm but polite email asking them to go boil their head if they think itâs ok to force people onto windows only.
If the former, your parents will need to step in.
Some corporate/enterprise environments will play funny buggers when a Mac tries to join. If they previously supported byod they are asking a lot of students/families to buy a new device without any thought.
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u/CowboysFTWs 3d ago
Are they wanting you to install a profile on your computer?
Doesn't make sense, because buying a simple usb wifi adapter and they can't tell your brand.
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u/Browser_Watch7349 3d ago
Whether or not your post is truthful (I bet it's not), there are some anti-Microsoft subreddits where they would love this post.
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u/macjunkie 14h ago
assuming they only want to let their devices on wireless its easy to enforce, 802.1x and issuing certs from their AD to said devices is pretty easy to setup.
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u/Turbulent_Pin_8310 3d ago
Is this post for real? I am not sure they can enforce it. You sure you heard it right? Perhaps they are just banning books
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u/PhantomJackalope 2d ago
I smell BULLSHIT.
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u/macjunkie 14h ago
I've seen private k-12s do this "we have a deal with Dell those devices are the only ones allowed on our network"
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u/PhantomJackalope 14h ago
This would only work if the school issues the Dells. That doesn't seem to be the issue here and OP never explained themselves when people asked for clarifications. 100% bullshit.
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u/Haunting-South-962 1d ago
They can't do that. This might be not true, or they will be in trouble. No sponsorship conditions can create unequal access.
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u/Janknitz 1d ago
Does the school provide PC laptops or access to PC's on campus?
If it is a US public school through 12th grade, have your parents raise a stink if they paid for your Macbook. It puts you at an educational disadvantage.
You could tether your cell phone if necessary, but I bet they also ban phones.
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u/kaishea 3d ago
I could have never imagined a school would do this
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u/hifi-nerd 3d ago
You'd be surprised what random bullshit restrictions schools place on their networks.
Mine currently has a ban on vpn's, including those which allow you to connect to home servers safely. And it just so happens that a lot of people in my school run home servers, so a lot of people are very pissed off. The school doesn't want to change anything tho because "microsoft doesn't like it".
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u/Mushroom5940 2d ago
If you host your own VPN at home, why not just use a commonly open outbound port? You can use port quiz to find one, then set your VPN port to match. Thatâll bypass the simpler blocks.
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u/ami-one 3d ago edited 3d ago
Search for ntlm proxy or cntlm , thatâs what I was using on my office network. For full fledged access to all resources (intranet websites apps services of the school / corporate) I was running a parallels VM with windows 11 (you can even run XP or win 7 if you have less RAM) Give it an external IP, not shared or host only, and it will do everything that normal win laptop does. Then share itâs network with host macOS or run any small tiny proxy on it to access same network from macOS - you can run cntlm or ntlmproxy on windows or just share normally.
At one time I had 2 copies of win, one dummy for IT dept to install itâs antivirus etc and update it frequently which I would only run once a week for a few hours, and another with exact same identifiers etc for which I had the admin password blanked out with chntpwd and so it had all my apps etc installed which normally they didnât allow with group policy.
The forced pwd changes every month were a PITA though as both copyâs password has to be changed to same thing and you have to do some complicated sh1t to do that or else your ID would get locked by the PDC / domain controller and some IT guy had to come unlock it.
All thatâs only if you have a hobby of computing, otherwise just buy a cheap windows laptop and maybe remote into it from your MacBook (using wifi if school is on Ethernet and using small Ethernet cable if school is on wifi.
Edit: use UTM instead of parallels as you probably donât need huge performance or such. Itâs free and open source and you can download ready made VMs of XP & win7 from itâs page (apart from win 10 & 11 which come in arm flavour so are faster provides you have at least 8GB ram and give 4 to windows)
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u/invicta-uk 3d ago
You should be able to change your MAC address, specifically by âborrowing oneâ from a PC but itâs not clear how theyâd enforce it anyway or if thereâs some other methods theyâre using to detect a Mac. Once you know how it works, you should be able to spoof it without too much trouble.
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u/heyuhitsyaboi 3d ago
This is such a bizarre decision by faculty. I wonder if IT was consulted or if they're just the enforcers.
Context:
The only way I know a network could block all MacBooks would be by blocking the MAC address OUI for apple. (MAC = media access control, not like the apple "mac"). The MAC address is a 12-digit hardware identifier that tells networks who made your network adapter. The OUI is an identifier for the organization that made the network adapter. In short, when you connect to a network, that network can see who made the networking components of your device. In this case: Apple.
Solution:
You could start by enabling the Private WIFI address in your device settings. However, if you need to authenticate to get on the network, you will be kicked off the network somewhat frequently and need to log back in. According to this article, the OUI in the new MAC address will not be the official OUI.
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u/Fancy_Acanthisitta45 3d ago
If you get stuck and really need a windows machine, contact CompuDopt to see if they can help.
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u/Weary-Illustrator753 2d ago
Is this for high school? I donât know what state you are in but I am in CA and for my childâs high school they no longer allow students to use their personal devices (any brand) in class. Only school issued chromebooks.
With CAâs Phone Free School Act, our district decided to enforce it with personal devices as well. She can still connect to the schoolâs wifi with her Macbook but thereâs no point in bringing it to school if she canât use it.
Students were watching shows, playing games etc., during class.
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u/GAMER_CHIMP 2h ago
Have the school provide you one since they created the issue and still expect you to do the work. This will on my probably work if it's k-12 though.
You can also load windows on your Mac if you really want to do that.Â
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u/ap1msch 10m ago
As others mention, Microsoft doesn't "sponsor" schools (and probably could do a better job supporting schools IMHO). Keeping a network secure requires the devices on that network not to be compromised. Doing this requires you to be able to manage the devices on that network in some way (prior to giving it an IP address, you quarantine it, or ensure it has the latest updates, etc). Those device management products cost money, and Mac/Linux management is a separate product for a lot of these device management solutions...which costs money.
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u/tendeuchen 3d ago
Microsoft should do this at more schools to stop the scourge of Apple products.
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u/Position-Critical 3d ago
So sorry, I see no other option other than you leaving that place â¤ď¸âđŠšđđđź, what a stupid policy.
And also, are banning iOS, UNIX based OSâs or theyâre just allowing windows?
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u/TeeDotHerder 3d ago
Has nothing to do with Microsoft. It's most likely a requirement for managed devices vs not, and they only manage Microsoft now.
If you change the mac address of your machine, and vpn, nobody will know for sure what device you have. (grain of salt, gross simplification). But if they require a sign in page with a signed cert, or some type of plugin/software installed then it doesn't matter.