New User with a few Questions

BDNYU · Feb 28, 2007

Ok, here's the story. My sister has always been a big mac fan-who has recently updated to a new macbook-and gave me her old ibook. I really like it but I was wondering how to change the computer name from her's to mine (I dont want my computer to be named after my sis lol) I have changed the password and made myself an administrator, but the "shortname" and home folders are still her's. How do I change this name without reloading the OS?

P.S. She sent me the OS restore disk but not the disk for MS Office and iWorks so I dont want to lose those programs

HELP ME MAC GUYS!

Stretch · Feb 28, 2007

Open system prefs, and go to the accounts tab. Theres a box there that says Short name, where you can change it.

BDNYU · Feb 28, 2007

That's where I went to change the login and password but it wont let me click in the box for shortname

Stretch · Feb 28, 2007

Oh, my bad. Hmm, not sure if you can change it. Someone else might know.

Reel1 · Feb 28, 2007

Give this a try....Good luck

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106824

MacHeadCase · Jun 5, 2007

I posted this info in another thread about this Macworld article, ChangeShortName 1.3. It seems that it can now be done with this little program, according to Dan Frakes:

...There are good reasons Apple has made it difficult to change your short user name, the most important being that as your official Unix account name, changing it involves more than just typing a new name in a field; it requires changes in a number of low-level places and modifications of a number of important files throughout the operating system. Apple provides a set of instructions for changing a short username; however, what those instructions are really doing is creating a new account, transferring your files from the existing account to the new one, and then deleting the existing account. This approach mostly works, but it’s a bit of a pain and it’s not really complete—a number of settings may not get updated this way.

As a result, I often recommend that people simply live with their current short username or, if the account was just created, create another new account with the desired name and then delete the unwanted one. But if you’re determined to actually change the short name of your account, I humbly suggest using ChangeShortName 1.3, which offers major improvements over earlier versions thanks to a lot of hard work by my co-conspirator, James Bucanek. ...

Edited to add:

Please be advised that this still remains a dangerous procedure, the author notes on the ChangeShortName 1.3 webpage.

New User with a few Questions

BDNYU

Stretch

BDNYU

Stretch

Reel1

MacHeadCase

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