[dgari]

I volunteered to set up a hand-me-down iMac G3 running OS 10.2 for my landlady. No good deed goes unpunished.

The machine arrived and OSX ran fine and would auto-login to 1 of 2 admin users. When I tried to create a new user for myself, the System Preferences app crashed during creation and on the next reboot the system auto-logs into a blank (white w/lite grey horiz stripes) screen. No actions are possible, as if the new user is still-born.

I've tried all forms of reboot (including Safe and P-R-option-command, whatever that is) but the system now only logs into the dead user. No, I don't have the OS CD.

How do I force a login prompt at start-time so I can choose one of the 3 users on the system?

[Detrius]

Hold down the shift key right before it would have performed the autologin.

BTW, this probably should have been posted in the Mac OS forum--not the Unix forum.

[dgari]

Although the question is now moot, I appreciate your reply very much. Yours is the answer that I:

a) was hoping for

b) suspect would work

c) probably wouldn't have gotten from the MacOS forum.

I went on vacation and the landlady's son blew away 10.2 by reinstalling 10.4 in a destructive way, so that expensive apps like MSWord are gone, causing me to install Appleworks, etc.

I will ask about converting WriteNow3 and Clarisworks docs to Appleworks6 elsewhere...

I'm old enough to know (read: grizzled) that anyone who says he's a computer expert is lying and that it's like studying philosophy: One is never truly enlightened.

Many thanks,

-DavidG

[a computer is like a banzai tree; perfection is a process, not a procedure]

__________________________________________

Originally Posted by Detrius

Hold down the shift key right before it would have performed the autologin.

BTW, this probably should have been posted in the Mac OS forum--not the Unix forum.

[Chuckit]

1. You would have gotten that answer in the Mac OS forum — you might even have gotten it from Detrius there too.

2. If you don't own the "expensive apps" to reinstall them, it wouldn't be any less legal to download them off Kazaa...