IMac – App Store, iMacs and Macbook pros

imacmacbook pro

I made the mistake of using my personal app store account when setting up my school's computers. Of course, there didn't seem to be a choice… now that I've done that, how do I permit the users of each of the computers to use their own app store accounts to run updates?

Best Answer

I would just sign out of your account and set up the correct account on each Mac. Open the App Store and see what updates are available. Any admin user can run normal updates and then you can see what purchases (if any) are on the wrong account.

You may have dodged a bullet if only system updates were done as they don't get tied as a permanent purchase. Even so, the cloning process means only one Mac registered for the iLife suite and you can wait for advice from Apple if that decision can be reversed if you'll just use one of the other accounts to update two machines going forward.

Ask a second question or edit this with more details once you've tried this on one test Mac to see what else needs fixing.

Related Solutions

MacOS – the best way to setup users in the macbook pro but still share content

iTunes and iPhoto libraries are, unfortunately, built upon databases that are designed for only one user. Apple recommends the following workarounds, each with their own drawbacks:

iTunes music folders can be placed within a central location (such as /Users/Shared). Only the music files themselves should be moved to the new location, not the library files (the files located at /Users/yourusername/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media). You then point each library to this new location (through iTunes > Preferences > Advanced). The big caveat to this approach: when another user on the computer adds music to the library, your library won't automatically see it. You will essentially need to tell iTunes to scan the music folder manually each time for it to pickup the changes. This support article from Apple describes this entire process in great detail.

With iPhoto, Apple technically recommends placing the shared library on an external hard drive, but you should be able to use /Users/Shared as well. Once the iPhoto library has been moved, open each user's iPhoto while holding down the option key. This will cause a pop-up screen to appear where you can select your library's location. The major caveat to this solution: if you switch between user accounts and another user has iPhoto open on their account, iPhoto will prevent you from opening the library. Again, Apple has a nice support article to cover this in great detail.

MacBook – Permanently Stop iTunes Auto-Loading

Short question, many solutions

The easy way

Using the Terminal, unregister all the links from you file types to iTunes /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -u /Applications/iTunes.app

If you still have trouble and iTunes opens automatically, check out RCDefaultApp. Old, but still working (right click->open...) http://www.rubicode.com/Software/Bundles.html#RCDefaultApp

Install, go to system preferences, disable all the "media" links to iTunes

"Quick and dirty" (Teminal)

First, do

sudo chown -R $USER /Applications/iTunes.app
chmod ugo-x /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS

This will prevent iTunes from starting EVER. To start iTunes manually, do

chmod ugo+x /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes; open /Applications/iTunes.app; chmod ugo-x /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes

The way for the brave

Use duti, http://duti.org/documentation.html. Install using "brew install duti", make sure to have homebrew installed first (http://brew.sh). Remove all links to iTunes. Make sure to read Change file association in terminal? to get all current file types.