Previous Owner cannot be deleted

[gboswellsac]

This one is new to me and sorry if covered else where. I bought a used white unibody from orginal owner has short name mlromo and also in the /users. I have added a new user dufus as administrator. Login as dufus cannot get System preferences tor run (get ? on dock). Can run as mlromo. I did a sudo su - and as root did a mv /users/mlromo /users/dufus (just checking what would happen) and mlromo looses the ability to run System Preferences, I mv /users/dufus /users/mlromo and have ability again.

How did the Mac Support person (mlromo has no Unix Background) take and tie the ability to run System Preferences to a short name and have in the /users/mlromo directory. I checked all the preferences in my MBP same OS X to see what may be set in preferences to change and both set up same. I have created different users on my MBP and gave admin ability and can run System Pref ok.

Confused/ignorant

 

[GoCubsGo]

The computer should have come to you fully restored. That would have then deleted the previous owner's home folder. Why wasn't that done? Just do it yourself using the supplied gray restore DVDs.

 

[gboswellsac]

The computer should have come to you fully restored. That would have then deleted the previous owner's home folder. Why wasn't that done? Just do it yourself using the supplied gray restore DVDs.

Thanks for the quick response, I would but the dvd does not work. I plan to fix it next week when the new DVD UJ 898 comes in. That was reason she did not fully restore it and why I bought it cheap enough to have to use OS features to resolve in intrim. To me is is a knowledge issue to see that a user account can lock an application like System Preferences. I changed the name of the computer and Login name but the shortname cannot be changed at present as it will lock out System Preferences. I understand permissions and the chown command but cannot see how an utility as needed as system preferences can be locked down to one user. On my MBP I have several diff users and all have access to system preferences.

 

[Consultant]

Sounds like your optical drive isn't working?

If you know anyone with a Mac with firewire (most models) you can use target disk mode to erase and install.

 

[gboswellsac]

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Sounds like your optical drive isn't working?

If you know anyone with a Mac with firewire (most models) you can use target disk mode to erase and install.

Great idea for immediate success. I can wait till I get a new DVD drive to replace the bad one but I will still be troubled by the inability of being able to use System Preferences by other users. Damn thing is bugging the heck out of me and my bsd books are at work......heck send me a url and I'll research it.

Thanks

Well after poking around some other sites I found that talked about bundles in /System/Library....SoftwareUpdate.prefPane, /etc/authorization .... WOW this interesting. Well I cheated by deleting everything in /users/dufus and doing a cp -pa /users/mlromo /users/dufus then a chown -R dufus /users/dufus and logged out of mlromo and logged in as dufus and dufus has ability to do system preferences. I know a big kludge and real no no but it allowed me to work as dufus (proper name for someone to do all this) and play with Systems Preferences.... If anyone has the real scoop send me the place to read up and understand what is really happening as it could be a good measure to use when Active Directory or LDAP are no in place. Thanks everyone who responded, I had fun working on this even though the BIG question is still not answered.