Creating new Administrator Account on used MBP

[drgrafix]

I'm about to buy a used MBP unibody 13" and no... its not stolen, seller has receipts for MBP and Applecare. Its about a year old. So I'm just wondering how difficult it is to delete his admin account and make a new one? I know I could just add an account, but that's goofy. The machine only has iWorks and iLife installed and has been upgraded to Snow Leopard.

Is this the same as a PC... reformat the HDD and reinstall the OS and two apps or is there a simpler route? Will the SL CD from my iMac 24 work with the MBP? Is the other alternative to bring it to an Apple store and have them reconfigure? That's a ride+ and how much will they charge for that?

BTW, are there "older" spec unibody MBP's? This one was purchased early in 2009, just wondered if there were different graphics in different releases? This one has the 2.53G procesor, 250G HDD, and 4 Megs or RAM.

Thanx

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

You can create a new Admin account while on the old one. Log out and log into your new account and since you have admin abilities, just delete his old account. Is he not including any of the original software/OS CDs?

The CD for your iMac will not work on your MBP since the disc is machine specific unless it's the Retail Snow Leopard DVD. But then having that installed on 2 machines violates the EULA since you only have one license so you can only have it installed on one machine.

All 13" MBPs have the same 9400m shared graphics cards.

Heh! I haven't seen 4 megs of ram since my old 5220 Performa back in '96 .

 

[davidlv]

You will need the old user's password if you create a new admin account, using the accounts preference pane. Make sure you ask the prior owner for it. You can change that password without knowing it if you have the original OS Install disks (wouldn't buy a used machine without those!), by starting up from the Install DVD and there is a menu for that somewhere in the pull-down menus. Sorry, I fogot exactly where. So, make sure you have either the old password or the original install disks and you will be fine.
Sorry, don't know about the differences in models, but it sounds like that is the latest or the one before at the earliest. Does it have an SD slot next to the 2 USB ports? If so, it is the latest model. If it has an express card slot, I believe it is the prior model (not sure about that, use Mactracker, free download, to check).
Nice computer and it should last you years!

 

[snaky69]

You can create a new Admin account while on the old one. Log out and log into your new account and since you have admin abilities, just delete his old account. Is he not including any of the original software/OS CDs?

The CD for your iMac will not work on your MBP since the disc is machine specific unless it's the Retail Snow Leopard DVD. But then having that installed on 2 machines violates the EULA since you only have one license so you can only have it installed on one machine.

All 13" MBPs have the same 9400m shared graphics cards.

Heh! I haven't seen 4 megs of ram since my old 5220 Performa back in '96 .

The snow leopard DVD is DRM free, it'll install fine.