Trying to update a MacBook from High Sierra -> Ventura, need help.

[WilliApple]

Greetings!

There is this girl that is on High Sierra on her 2017 normal MacBook. it is Ventura supported. When we got to the Pre-Install screen, it asked for a username and password. We found the username on the Home folder was 'owner', however that doesn't work.

There are no other users on the MacBook, it is hers.

Is there anything I can try?

Thanks in advance,
Willi

 

[DominikHoffmann]

Hi Willi! Does it not work, because you only have the user name, “owner,” or because, while having the user name, you don’t have the password?

If it is the former, you will have to change the user ID of “owner” to something else, maybe the girl’s name. The reason for that is that newer versions of macOS may disallow that specific user name—I don’t know. You can learn about how to make the change by going to this Apple Support document. You’ll likely have to install an additional administrative account, because you can only change the name of an account not currently logged in.

For that matter, I would advise setting up the second admin account with long name “Administrator” and short name “admin” and demoting the girl’s day-to-day account to “standard.” That way she can less easily tricked into supplying her admin user ID credentials by some piece of malware, especially, if she doesn’t have the admin password memorized. Then use the admin user ID to initiate the macOS upgrade.