TimeMachine / Migration Assistant and a different UID, but same username

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TimeMachine / Migration Assistant and a different UID, but same username

Hello there,

I am going to do a clean reinstall of my Macs with Mountain Lion (no need to discuss clean install vs. upgrade, please). During this shift the goal is to transfer all accounts into Open Directory. While keeping the account names, the UIDs will be different.

Doing a clean install, I can see no use in restoring all stuff in a users profile, for some is old, useless and maybe the related application is long gone. But there are a couple of items worth to be saved, for sure: emails, contacts, calendar, favorites, iTunes library, the users documents and very important: purchased Items from iTunes or App Store and the keychain of cause. Users agreed, that they can rebuild settings of other applications, not listed before.

Will the Migration Assistant the right path to go? Can I use a TimeMachine Backup and restore it for a user with the same name, but a different UID using the Migration Assistant? Will there be any pitfall for purchased items or the keychain?

Thanx for your help

COWegner

Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 28, 2012 2:45 AM

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Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 28, 2012 12:06 PM in response to COWegner

COWegner wrote:

. . .

Can I use a TimeMachine Backup and restore it for a user with the same name, but a different UID using the Migration Assistant?

No. Migration Assistant restores user accounts and data (although you can omit some broad categories). It won't "merge" data into an existing home folder.

When it does that, it will preserve the UID on the backups if it can; if the same UID already exists, it will use a different one.

If a user account of the same name already exists, it will require you to rename one of them, or skip it.

Note that, if you use it when OSX first starts up on a new Mac, or after installation on an empty volume, it's called Setup Assistant. The windows are a bit different, but the only significant difference is, since there aren't any user accounts already, it can preserve all UIDs and user names from the backups.

See How do I set up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC?

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