Short Name, used computer??

[carrasaurus]

I bought a used imac from a craigslist user, g5 OSX 10.5.5

I've changed everything I can, but when I click Macintosh HD>Users, the name for the main admin is still the previous users name. I assume this is the "short name" since it is lower case w/ no spaces. I was able to set up the user name and info for my wife in her account, but my account is the main account and I cannot find a way to change the short name for the main account.

Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[TEG]

Just create a new Admin account and delete the old one. You cannot (to my knowledge) change the short name on an account after creation because it is referenced by most of the software to store user data.

TEG

 

[stukdog]

Changing the shortname is a terribly hard thing to do. There are so many things that rely on it.

A better route is to create another admin account of your own. Then log out of the old account, into the new, and delete the old. (Though this probably would have been easier before you rebuilt the whole thing for yourself.)

 

[GimmeSlack12]

In Tiger you used to be able to use the program ChangeShortName. And that worked out as advertised. In Leopard its not the same process though you can read about how to do it (not impossible, but not totally simple) here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/132693/2008/03/changeshortusername.html.

EDIT: I recommend following the other guys advice above and just create a new Admin acct. Or just wipe the computer and start fresh.

 

[jodelli]

If you delete the previous User Admin account it will show up in a Deleted Account folder where some of the info might be recovered.