My sister has loaned her MacBook Air (with Snow Leopard) to my mother's household. It's time to update some of the software, including Safari, but she doesn't remember the password or ID (I think that would be her email address, yes?) and doesn't want to be bothered with remembering the security questions. My mother's caregiver is shy about asking her for the information, and my sister doesn't think much of me, so though I have had a message sent from Apple to her email address, but she is unlikely to divulge her email password to the caregiver, and I don't think she'd like to give it to me, either. Is there any other way to reset the administrative password, assuming that her email address (which we all know) is her Apple ID? I think I read, somewhere, that all this can be done if we have the install disk (which she also is unlikely to have, anymore, but I have the same version of the OS, Snow Leopard), or that someone "on the network" can change the password. Does that mean someone on my mother's wifi? The caregivers and I all are on my mother's wifi.
I know this sounds very phoney, but my sister's approach to computers is just to get a new one if something needs updating. She has already loaned my mother two other "outdated" computers, replacing each as she got a new computer for herself. Therefore, she doesn't keep passwords and doesn't see the point of updating anything, so she doesn't want to help with this particular problem. (She thinks that if the software is updated, the computer will get a virus – an indication of her mindset.) I don't think she keeps the Apple software disks, either, even though we ran into trouble with the computer she lent to my mother before this one. The last time this happened, there was no fully functioning computer in the apartment for a long time.
But if there is no way around this, either the caregiver or I shall have to ask my sister again for either the answers to her security questions (I believe I know one of them) or for her email password, so we can get a message sent to her with the administrator password, or the ability to change the password. I'm not sure that she'll permit that, because she is so suspicious of updating and still considers this her computer (although she doesn't want it back). She won't make the change herself, though, so if none of this works, I guess my mother's caregivers will just have to make do without a computer at my mother's. Since they are here during the day, seven days a week, and they use the computer while my mother sleeps (which is a lot of time), that will be a real hardship for them.
Sorry for this strange tale. I really wouldn't ask, if I thought that I'd be doing something illegal, so if there is nothing I can do, we'll just have to hope for the best. Like my sister getting tired of whatever computer she uses now. If she has one.
