Getting settings back after OS crash... new admin & old user

Question

I'm just recovering from an OS crash that took a while to resolve.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1647853&tstart=0
Now I have a new administrator account with a blank desktop and I can see my old user account in Finder/Users, but I don't see it in System Prefs/Accounts. Reading up on this, I understand I need to do some renaming to recover my settings for Safari, Mail, etc.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1876?viewlocale=en_US
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16620
I'm not clear on what to rename though. Do I want to rename the new administrator account with the old user name or rename the old user name with the new admin name?

Answer 1

I suggest you create a backup administrator id on the system that you are changing!!!
Now I have a new administrator account with a blank desktop and I can see my old user account in Finder/Users, but I don't see it in System Prefs/Accounts. Reading up on this, I understand I need to do some renaming to recover my settings for Safari, Mail, etc.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1876?viewlocale=en_US
This procedure seems correct as far as to go. The author assumes that the GUID and UID are the same. You need to verify this.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16620
I am not sure this procedure is what you need.
I'm not clear on what to rename though. Do I want to rename the new administrator account with the old user name or rename the old user name with the new admin name?
There seems to be two ways to proceed.
Assigned your old administrator data to your new administrator. To do this, you would rename your new administrator directory to something else then rename your old administrator directory to what ever you selected for the new administrator directory name. You would then verify the Group ID and the user ID.
Or, renamed your old administrator directory. Create a new administrator with the same names as your old administrator was. You can either follow the steps above or copy the data from the old directory to the new with the Finder. Hold down the option key in the Finder to be sure that you are copying the data.
Mac OS X: How to change user short name or home directory name
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106824
This is tricky stuff.
You need to change these things:
1) Your account information
2) All of your files & folders
One way to change what uid and gid are defined for your account is theNetInfo Manager application. This doesn't change the UID & GID on your files and folders.
Mac OS X ... harddrive -> Applications -> Utilities -> NetInfo Manager
In the middle column is the function. Pick users then select your user. Click on the lock at the bottom of the panel. Go into the property list and change UID and GID."
sudo find -x / -user 501 -exec chown 5464 {} \;
sudo find -x / -group 20 -exec chgrp 211 {} \;
#combined change of uid & gid
sudo find -x / -user 501 -exec chown 5464:211 {} \;
There are two generally used schemes for assigning a group to a user:
1) Assign all users to a common group like staff.
2) Assign each user to their own group. A user like test would be in group test.
Mac OS uses method 1 in 10.2 and method 2 in 10.4.
You should not have multiple users assigned to the same uid. My worry is that if you are only change in the 50x range, you could run into a conflict.
Your best bet is to change to a high number like 5464 on all of your accounts.
On Mac OS, there are a few files that have the old uid as part of their names. The .Trashes file will be on your removal media and maybe everywhere.
/.Trashes/501
/Library/Caches/com.apple.IntlDataCache.501
/Library/Caches/com.apple.IntlDataCache.sbdl.501
/Library/Caches/com.apple.user501pictureCache.tiff
Here are some terminal commands:
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
cd /Applications
Your current user is:
echo $USER
Let's assume myuser
To find out your UID and GID do:
cd ~
ls -ln
ls -l
Or, you can use the id command.
id
compare the output and write down what you find.
You best use the numeric value for your userid. In this case it is 500. To list all the files owned by a userid do:
sudo find / -user 500 -exec ls {} \;
#And you need to do this from an administrator id.
/* adding a -x before the / limits the search to the current file system. *
# To stop the display press control-c
sudo find -x / -user 501 -exec chown 5464 {} \;
#And you need to do this from an administrator id.
Hope this helps a little.
Robert