MacOS – How to set up a firmware password on a MacBook Air

In my 2011 MacBook Air running Lion, when I select Restart... from the  menu, if I then hold the shift key through the restart process, the boot process is distinctly different than a normal reboot. There is a progress bar across the bottom of the screen, and then I am deposited at the login window, despite normally automatically logging in. I suspect that a Safe Boot has indeed been performed. The difference between this an Safe Boot in previous versions is that no "Safe Mode" text appears on the login screen for me.

It's not the sort of thing a hacker can easily "figure out" -- as I understand it, the procedure involves calling Apple's Service Provider Support, proving you're an authorized service provider, reading them a code from the computer and typing in the countercode they give you...

Mind you, that doesn't mean you're out of luck. If you have admin access, and a 10.6.x install DVD or USB key for your Mac, this MacEnterprise posting has instructions to use setregproptool to enable/disable the firmware password. If you have Lion, it's probably on the recovery partition somewhere, but I haven't investigated.