Change Short Name V1.3 Mustread Me

ChangeShortName v1.3 (Distributed with changeshortname.command v1.3) © James Bucanek & Dan Frakes IMPORTANT! ChangeShortName does serious things. You must read this documentation before using ChangeShortName. SUMMARY One of the most common questions users of Mac OS X ask is "How do I change my short username?" Although OS X provides a simple interface—the Accounts pane of System Preferences— for changing a user’s long name, there is no easy way to change the short name of an account once the account is created. Apple provides a set of instructions (<http://docs.info.apple.com/ article.html?artnum=106824>) in the Apple Knowledge Base—actually, a process for creating a new user account and then transferring all your data to it—but that process isn't as complete as actually changing your short username. A more comprehensive tutorial was provided in Dan's book, Mac OS X Power Tools (<http://www.macosxpowertools.com/>). However, one look at either of these methods may persuade you to just live with your current short username. Unless you have ChangeShortName, that is. ChangeShortName is a utility that does the dirty work involved in changing the short name of a user’s account in Mac OS X (versions 10.4.x and 10.3.x; see below for information about 10.2.x; ChangeShortName has not been tested with Mac OS X Server). ChangeShortName offers an easy- to-use graphical interface that runs, under the hood, a well-tested Unix shell script that fully—and safely—changes the short username of a healthy OS X account. (The script itself is also provided separately for those who prefer, or need to use, the command line; instructions for using both versions of ChangeShortName are provided below.) NOTE: This ReadMe provides important information about the ChangeShortName utility and script. Because changing a short username is a serious process, you MUST at least read the USING ChangeShortName section. However, we recommend that you read the entire document, as it contains important details about what ChangeShortName does, minor issues you may encounter, and what to do if you have a problem. In addition, we'll say right up front that because changing the short username is such a serious procedure, we recommend using ChangeShortName as a last resort. The best option is to simply learn to live with your present short username. Or, if the account in question was just created, create a new account with the desired short username and then delete the "unwanted" account. That said, if you're determined to actually change the short username of an existing account, read on— ChangeShortName is the safest and easiest way to do so. THE DETAILS What is a Short User Name? Each account in Mac OS X has two names: A “long” name, which is the name the user normally sees (the Name field in Accounts preferences), and a “short” name, which is the user’s actual Unix account name (the Short Name field in Accounts preferences, the account's entry in Mac OS X's NetInfo database…