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kevo0822

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 13, 2007
339
99
New England
So this is a problem that just kind of popped up out of nowhere... I don't think I've changed anything that would create this problem...

Whenever I try to delete something from the Applications folder, move something in the folder, or overwrite something in the folder, Finder asks me for my password. I'm an Admin user, so I don't think that would be causing the problem... Any ideas?

Oh, I'm running 10.5.1 on a 2.2 SR MBP.
 

nutman

macrumors regular
May 19, 2006
159
0
if you are not logged in as an administrator, you will have to enter an admin password to change folders and documents on a system level. you do not have to do this for things in your own home folder.
 

unity

macrumors 6502a
Sep 30, 2005
926
0
Green Bay, WI
if you are not logged in as an administrator, you will have to enter an admin password to change folders and documents on a system level. you do not have to do this for things in your own home folder.

Exactly. Or if this is not the admin account, I think you can check the setting in accounts to allow admin privileges.
 

Mal

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2002
6,252
18
Orlando
Check the permissions on the Applications folder. If you upgraded to Leopard, sometimes those folders don't get the permissions set correctly, and it's not something Repair Permissions would fix because it looks reasonably normal to not have a particular user with permission for that folder.

jW
 

Kashchei

macrumors 65816
Apr 26, 2002
1,148
5
Meat Space
I'll have to try this on my wife's MacBook. As soon as I upgraded to Leopard, I had to enter my password to do anything even though mine was an administrator account. Thanks for the help with this!
 

deydodoe

macrumors newbie
Nov 4, 2007
2
0
London
I find the same problem too.

There are some odd behaviours with permissions with Leopard especially if you've migrated from Tiger. All new admin users in Leopard are default set with GID 20 (staff). I had to change all migrated users GIDs (including admin user) manually to staff and this solved several issues with the home directory permissions.

I suspect / guess what happens is that with Leopard's default GID, you are generally recognised by the system as staff and to invoke admin rights you need to enter the password. You still have admin rights as the user name and password requested are recognised as admin but perhaps in general use you are a staff group. Maybe this is by design to ensure certain areas are safe from accidents?? If i do id in terminal my user shows I am a member of staff and admin so as far as the system is concerned I am still an admin but perhaps not defaulted into this group.

This is just a bit of a guess based on observed behaviour as I am no unix guru - but it does seem a plausible explanation as to why I have full RW (read write) in areas where staff permissions are set to RW but wherever staff permission is read only and admin set to RW (e.g. apps folder), I have to enter a password even though I'm logged in as a user with admin.

Perhaps there's a unix / leopard os guru who can confirm or rubbish this view??
 
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