[Tennberg]

Hi everyone,

I'm creating a standard OS X install for my company and have been working on it and testing it by creating a test user account (non-admin) to make sure everything works.
I named the user account with the name "Test User" and the short name "testuser". When I enabled the root account, I could only modify the name, *not* the short name. What do I need to do so that when this install is deployed, we can set up the "test" account with the user's full name as the "name" and their first initial/last name as the "short name"? Why can't I modify the short name even as root?
Also, for the test user account, I went into the "Capabilities" menu (as the root user) and checked everything - burn CDs, access system prefs, change password, and access all apps. However, when I logged in as the test user, there was no listing for System Prefs in the Apple Menu. When I logged back in as root and checked the Capabilities of the test user, half of the boxes were unchecked. Any idea why this happened, and possibly how to prevent it?
Thanks in advance for any help...

[Terri]

Each user in Mac OS X has a full "Name" and a "Short Name" as defined in the Users pane of System Preferences. The short name is limited to 8 characters, and this is the name used to create a user's Home directory (folder) in the Users folder. The name of a Home directory cannot be changed using the graphical user interface (GUI). Though there are other methods by which an advanced user may change this 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. Follow these steps:

1. Optional step: As a precaution, you may disable automatic login prior to performing this procedure. In the event that you restart the computer for any reason before completing the procedure, this would prevent complications from having displaced the user selected for automatic login. For Mac OS X 10.1.5 or earlier, automatic login is found in the Login preference pane. For Mac OS X 10.2, it is found in the Accounts preference pane.
2. Enable the root user, then log in as root. For further explanation of this step, see technical document 106290, "Mac OS X: About the root User and How to Enable It".
3. For Mac OS X 10.2 or later: Open the Accounts pane of the System Preferences application.
For Mac OS X 10.1.5 or earlier: Open the Users pane of System Preferences.
4. In the Name list, locate the user with the short name that you want to replace. This will be referred to as the "original user".
5. Note whether or not the original user is identified as Admin, which appears in the Kind column to the right.
6. Click New User.
7. Complete the Name and Short Name fields as desired. Be sure that the Short Name is exactly as you want it to appear.
8. For Mac OS X 10.2: Fill in the New Password and Verify fields.
For Mac OS X 10.1.5. or earlier: Click the password tab, then fill in the Password and Verify fields.
9. If the user you are replacing is an Admin user, then select the checkbox for "Allow user to administer this computer".

Note: This checkbox is dimmed and already selected if there is not another Admin user. Mac OS X requires at least one Admin user.

10. Click Save.
11. Quit System Preferences.
12. Click the Finder icon in the Dock.
13. Choose Computer from the Go menu.
14. Open the Users folder in the Mac OS X disk.
15. Open the folder with the short name of the new user that you just created.
16. Drag the contents of this folder to the Trash.

Warning: Do not empty the Trash yet. In the event that you accidentally move contents of the wrong folder, you may recover them from the Trash after discovering your mistake.

17. Choose New Finder Window from the File menu. Be sure to position the new window so that you can see both Finder windows.
18. In the new window, open the folder of the original user.
19. Drag the contents of the original user's folder into the new user's folder (that you emptied in Step 16).
20. Close one of the Finder windows.
21. Open the Terminal application (located at /Applications/Utilities/).
22. Type: chown -R <new_name> /Users/<new_name>

Important: Replace "<new_name>" with the actual short name of the new user you just created. For example, if the new user had the short name "jacques", you would type:

chown -R jacques /Users/jacques

23. Press Return
24. Quit Terminal.
25. Choose Log Out from the Apple menu.
26. Log in as the new user. You should be able to access all of your original files on the desktop and in the folders of the Home directory.

[Tennberg]

Hi Terri,

Wow! Thanks for all that info. Two questions for you, though:

1. You said Mac OS X has to have at least 1 admin user. Can this be root, or do you have to have a root user AND an admin user, in addition to everyone else's account?

2. When I created this non-admin test user, I couldn't get the settings for their Capabilities to stick (such as System Prefs appearing in the Apple Menu, which apps to open, etc.). Is there a reason why those settings weren't holding?

[Terri]

First let me say that the above was a copy and paste from one of the Apple docs that I keep on my Palm.

I'm not sure if you can have just a root account, but even if you can I don't think it is a good idea to leave a root account on the machine at all. I would only have an admin account for doing admin type stuff and not be using a root account to do admin stuff. You can just do too much damage too easy logged in as root and anything you create or install ends up being owned by root.

As far as things not sticking I would say that your permissions are screwed up.

Open Disk Utility and have it fix permissions and then create an admin account and use that to create your user accounts.

Permissions are a wonderful and powerful feature, but if you mess them up all kinds of strange things happen.

When I first started creating X installs I remember learning the hard way the each user has a name AND an number ID. I went through hell before I realized that my "terri" account that I had made on two different occasions had two different number IDs, but the same name. The system was very confused and did some really strange things. I learned how to use the terminal, "Visual Quick Start To UNIX" really helped.

Now that I understand how things work I make a lot less mistakes, but I'm still learning myself.

[Tennberg]

Hi Terri,

Hope you read this...

Right now, the only non-admin account on my test box is "testuser". When I push out this image to separate users, create new users with their specific long names and short names, and copy everything over to the new account, will that change *everything* that was associated with "testuser" to, say, "jdoe".

For example, MS Word prefs says that user templates are in /Users/testuser/Documents. When I create this new user and copy "testuser"'s account into it, will that change this pref to /Users/jdoe/Documents? Is the OS smart enough to go through and change all these references to the old account to the new account?

Thanks...