From Thursby Software Systems, DAVE provided commercial-grade Microsoft Windows SMB/CIFS file and print-sharing functionality for Apple Macs. DAVE was first introduced in 1996. At first, DAVE only supported Mac users accessing files on a

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

computer through a network. Thursby released a second version in 1998 which enabled Windows users to access files on Mac computers and to print documents from Mac PostScript printers.

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

DFS support was added in 2002. Thursby co-wrote the Mac SMB/CIFS standards with Microsoft in 2002. Although

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

does have

Samba Samba () is a broad term for many of the rhythms that compose the better known Brazilian music genres that originated in the Afro-Brazilians, Afro Brazilian communities of Bahia in the late 19th century and early 20th century, It is a name or ...

support, the built-in SMB support with early OS X versions had limitations that DAVE attempted to overcome, offering better compatibility & performance for enterprise environments and specifically in networked use of Mac apps such as Final Cut Pro, Creative Suite, Avid and Office. The ADmitMac and ADmitMac PKI products build on DAVE, adding enhanced support for Microsoft Active Directory and US government Public-key infrastructure systems. In 2017, Thursby announced that DAVE and ADmitMac were now end-of-life products, writing:

Thursday, July 27, 2017 (Arlington, TX) Today Thursby Software Systems, Inc. (Thursby) announced the end-of-life for both their legacy DAVE® and ADmitMac® products for the Apple Macintosh. DAVE was first introduced in 1996, 21 years ago, as the first Microsoft SMB file-sharing client on the Mac. In 2003, Thursby introduced ADmitMac as the first Active Directory solution for the Mac. Since that time, Apple has continued to improve their operating system by inclusion of their own SMB and Active Directory technology, in part with the help of Thursby. With the recent announcement of the High Sierra operating system, Thursby believes that Apple has finally culminated a total Microsoft file systems to the quality that eliminates the need for either DAVE or ADmitMac. Thursby will continue to support customers under contract, but does not expect any enhancements for the next operating system release. Legacy licenses with 30-day configuration support will continue to be available to all customers.

The final versions were DAVE v13 and ADmitMac v10.

References

Classic Mac OS software {{Mac-software-stub