Multiple users on new iMac

[fishbulb]

Hi all,

I'm a long time Mac user going back to the days of my blueberry futuristic toilet-seat-looking iBook. Today my wife and I received our new iMac and I have a few questions about it. I've set up all of our Macs in the past but my wife and I have never shared one before. What I'm not sure about is how do we share applications? For example, I don't want to download large apps onto both of our accounts and have them take up essentially twice the space on our hard drive. The prime example of this is Matlab engineering and math software. I believe it is about 10 Gigs and I don't want to install it twice (for 20 gigs). Is there a way to install software so that it is available to all users on the same machine. Another example is printer drivers. I don't see the need to install it for all accounts.

Thanks guys for any help. I did try to research this on my own but had no luck. I have already figured out how to share our itunes and iPhoto libraries (but maybe I'll have more questions later too!)

FB

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Mac OS X is designed for multiple accounts sharing the same applications, as the Applications folder is outside the Users folder and accessible by all accounts (unless limited), thus if you install applications appropriately once, they will be available by your account and by whatever other account (unless limited).

Installing Applications in Mac OS X

 

[hfg]

However, your personal preferences when using apps are stored within your user folder, as will be your wife's in her folder.