Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >
Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >
Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply
ask a new question.
Miss_T why didn't you just continue posting to your original thread? That said did you follow what Barney-15E advised? Did you follow this?
Changing the short name
Though there are other methods by which an advanced user may change the short name and related information, the easier and safer workaround is to create a new user with the desired name, then copy the old user's Home directory contents into that of the new user.
Before following these steps, you may wish to back up your important data.
For Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Enable the root user.
Log in as root.
Navigate to the /Users folder.
Select the Home folder with the short name you want to change, and rename it just like you would rename any folder. Keep in mind that the shortname must be all lowercase, with no spaces, and only contain letters.
Use the Accounts pane in System Preferences to create a new user with the short name that you used in the previous step.
Click OK when "A folder in the Users folder already has the name 'short name'. Would you like to use that folder as the Home folder for this user account?" Note: This will correct the ownership of all files in the Home folder, and avoid permissions issues with the contents.
Choose Log Out from the Apple menu.
Log in as the newly created user. You should be able to access all of your original files (on the desktop, in Documents, and in the other folders of this Home).
After verifying that your data is as expected, you can delete the original user account via the Accounts pane of System Preferences.
Disable the root user.
hi,
thanks for your answer.
unfortunately I coud not enable the root user; I followed the directions on the link:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1528 but I did not find the option as it was described.
Not being able to enable the root user I could not follow the rest of the directions.
Where do I go from here? what am I doing wrong?
thanks
t
Is there anything on that account that you need. You said it was a new machine; if so, if there isn't anything on that account, just create a new account. No need to change the name.
You did not find what option as described where? The step number or description of the option you couldn't find will help us figure out what the problem is.
these are the directions I followed to enable the root user:
Mac OS X v10.6 and later
From the Apple menu choose System Preferences....
From the View menu choose Accounts.
Click on the lock and authenticate with an administrator account.
Click Login Options....
Click the "Edit..." or "Join..." button at the bottom right.
Click the "Open Directory Utility..." button.
Click the lock in the Directory Utility window.
Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.
Choose Enable Root User from the Edit menu.
Enter the root password you wish to use in both the Password and Verify fields, then click OK.
When I click on "Open Director Utility" after I put my password I do not see Root User in the list so I cannot enable it.
Any idea why I am not seeing it?
thanks
t
I guess I could try to create a new account if it is too complicate to solve.
If you are logged in as your normal user, go to the Apple menu and choose the Log out item at the bottom of the menu.
When the login screen appears, select other and type in root for the user name and the password you set when you enabled it.
