12-26-2004, 04:45 PM

Hello...

I'm new to Macs. so please forgive me if this question is common or obvious...

A friend bought me a used G3 Power Mac with OS X 10.3 and Microsoft Office X on it. The seller did not include any discs and did not reinstall the OS to bring it back to its default config.

There's only one account listed on the computer and it says it's "Admin". I do not have the password. That's not too much of a problem since it auto-logs on and I can use the computer.

What can I do to either change the unknown user password, or reinstall OS X?

I'm new to world of Macs, coming from the Windows universe myself. Can I just borrow someone's OS X and install it? Would that be legal? Would there be any hardware driver issues?

As for Windows Office X...would that have been installed as part of the config on the original purchase? Am I licensed for it without discs? If I reinstall OS X somehow, would it reinstall Office X, too?

TIA,
Opus

PS...nice forum. As a vBulletin admin myself, I like this forum's style. Very nice.

12-26-2004, 05:26 PM

you can borrow someones discs, though it would be illegal, it wont reinstall M$ office x.
if said discs are just panthe install discs(purchased seperately from computer), theres no hardware issues, however, dont use software restore discs that come with newer macs and are os x, that installs hardware specific items and will cause problems down the road.have you tried creating another user account and making it an admin and then deleting the current admin account? with the pather install discs, you can change the password by booting from install disc 1 and selecting change password from the Installer menu.

12-26-2004, 06:10 PM

I can create a new user but it's standard not admin. I'm brand spanking new to Macs (well haven't touched them since the Classic II days :mac: ) so I'll poke around some more.

Thank you for all the info. Appreciate it.

Thx,
O.

12-26-2004, 06:30 PM

Originally Posted by opus_az

I can create a new user but it's standard not admin.

OK, I managed to find that big, blue, obvious, in front of my nose, checkbox saying "allow this user to administer this computer". Sheesh. . Still, I'm cautious about deleting the original user since I don't want to get into anything I can't recover from without discs.

Again, thanks for your help.
O