Classic Mac OS · classic settings

Mac OS 9 Control Panels: thirteen panels from the last classic Mac OS

The classic Mac OS had no Settings app and no System Preferences. It had Control Panels, a folder in the Apple menu where each panel was a small window of its own. This page walks the thirteen panels the simulator carries as they stood in Mac OS 9.2 and links every one to a window you can open.

Newest release here
Mac OS 9 9.2
Versions you can open
2
Top-level sections
13
Rows in the tree
72
Mac OS 9 9.2 home screen in the simulator
Open Mac OS 9 9.2 in the simulator →

How Mac OS 9 organises its Settings

Appearance set the platinum look, with the Graphite, Blue, Gold, Green and Turquoise highlight colours, the desktop picture, smart scrolling, the system font and the sound track that gave the interface its clicks. Apple Menu Options decided how many recent documents, applications and servers the Apple menu remembered. Date & Time had the clock, the formats, the time zone and a network time server. Energy Saver held separate timings for display and hard-disk sleep.

File Sharing started and stopped sharing and named the computer and owner. General Controls collected the odd switches: the desktop in the background, the Launcher at startup, insertion-point blinking. Monitors set colours and resolution, Sound the alert sounds, Memory the disk cache, virtual memory and a RAM disk, Keyboard the repeat rate and layout. Startup Disk chose between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, Extensions Manager enabled the extension sets that decided what loaded at boot, and TCP/IP held the address, mask and router.

What changes between versions

Two releases are here, Mac OS 9.0 from 1999 and Mac OS 9.2 from 2001. 9.2 was the version built to run alongside Mac OS X as the Classic environment, which is why Startup Disk lists both systems and Extensions Manager shows the 9.2.2 sets. The thirteen panels are the same on both rungs, drawn in the platinum appearance.

Three settings worth knowing the path to

  1. Control Panels > Memory > Virtual Memory Size

    Classic Mac OS let you size virtual memory by hand or turn it off, and set a RAM disk beside it. Every performance tip of the era started here.

  2. Control Panels > Extensions Manager > My Settings

    A named set of extensions to load at startup, switched with the base and full sets. Troubleshooting a crashing Mac meant booting with a smaller set from this panel.

  3. Control Panels > Startup Disk > Mac OS X

    On a 2001 Mac this panel is how you moved between Mac OS 9 and the new system. It is the same choice the Mac still offers under General today.

Questions people ask about Mac OS 9 settings

What replaced Control Panels on the Mac?

System Preferences, in Mac OS X, which put every panel in one window as an icon grid. The simulator's Mac OS X entry shows that grid, and its macOS entry shows the sidebar that replaced it.

What was the Extensions Manager?

The panel that chose which system extensions and control panels loaded at startup, with named sets such as All, Base and My Settings. Disabling extensions was the standard fix for conflicts.

Is this the real Mac OS 9?

It is a simulation of the Control Panels with the panels and wording of 9.0 and 9.2. The computer name, addresses and extensions shown are sample values and nothing runs.