Letting any Mac use a Remote Disc

Remote Disc is a Mac OS X feature where one Mac uses another Mac's CD/DVD drive as if it were its own, while connected over the network.

Any Mac can choose to share its DVD drive, via System Preferences > Sharing > DVD or CD Sharing. By default, only MacBook Air computers can be a client of Apple's Remote Disc feature.

But when a Mac has a faulty DVD drive, this feature would be handy as a workaround until the drive can be repaired. So can we get a non-Air Mac to be a Remote Disc client? Yes. This blog post explains that writing two settings via the command line in the Terminal app tells the Finder to look for Remote Disc servers on the network.

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool true

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser ODSSupported -bool true

Then restart your Mac. "Remote Disc" should appear in the sidebar of a Finder window.