09-24-2004, 01:07 PM

i just got a new ibook,unfortunately the sales staff took it upon themselves to set it up and install the extra memory i bought themselves. they put the name on the order in as the name of the computer and the name of the admin account. i can change the name of the account but not the short name and i dont think i can change the computer name. if i reinstall from the two grey disks i got with the book will that bring me back to where i can start over and choose my own computer name etc?

09-24-2004, 05:21 PM

Yes you are able to change your computer name in your account simply using Systhem Preferences.
If you prefer you can reinstal it would give you the opportunity to change it there also.

09-25-2004, 11:00 PM

For user account names in Panther:
1) create a second admin acct if you don't have one; log out of the acct you want to change and log into the new one.
2) Open NetInfo Manager; in the window that opens find "Users" in the upper-middle panel, when you click on "Users" a list of names will appear in the panel to the right; click on the name you want to change. Now click on the lock symbol at the left-bottom, type in your password and click OK. In the lower window scroll down the "Property" column to "Realname". In the Value column, doubleclick on the name to the right of Realname. Now you can type in the new name.
3) To change the short name, scroll down in the lower panel; in the Value column replace every old short name with the new name. Make sure you change only the name, not any path name that might be attached. Hit command-s to save the changes.
4) To change the user name in Groups, go back to the same panel where "Users" is located and slect groups. In the panel to the right select your old user name and in the bottom panel change the old name to the new one. Save the changes and update the copy. Quit Netinfo Manager.
5) Now your new name is active but you need to change your home folder name to match. Open the Terminal utility, type cd /Users and hit return, type sudo mv old name new name and hit return, type your password at the prompt and hit return. Now quit Terminal, log out of the current account and log into the account you just modified.
This info is from MacAddict, Oct '04. (I know it works because I used on my account.)