Start-Up new 27" iMac

I have used top of the line Dell XPS systems for the past 15 years. I have decided to jump ship and I ordered a loaded iMac. My question is there any advice you can give me in starting up my ne iMac for the first time. Also what are the main issues I will run into since my brain is a PC wired brain?
Thanks for any advice

Is it true I do not need Norton or McAfee or any other security software?
Absolutely! Whatever you do PLEASE do not install those on your computer they tend to create more problems than they ever solve.
In short there are NO virus's that affect OS X currently. I've been operating without any malware for 3 years despite not using any anti virus software.
If you choose to run Windoze on your Mac then the Windoze partition will be susceptible to Malware and virus's as is any Windoze computer. If somehow the Windoze partition becomes infected it will NOT affect the OS X partition at all.
Is MainMenu a good program for the iMac?
I don't use MainMenu, I've only used Spotlight to launch applications and locate files. You will find launching apps and locating just about anything on you Mac with Spotlight is very simple. It's the magnifying glass symbol in the upper right of the screen. It can also be launched by holding down the Command key and spacebar. For example if I want to start Safari I can click on the Safari icon in the Dock however what I like to do is hit Command-Spacebar then type Safari and Spotlight finds it and I'm running.
Here is a Wikipedia article that provides more insight into Spotlight.
NOTE: I just looked up what MainMenu is and see I was totally off target by describing Spotlight. However the answer is NO I don't see a need to use MainMenu. Macs very rarely need any maintenance by the user. Part of OS X is it runs daily, weekly and monthly maintenance. This is usually done in the middle of the night and needs no user intervention. One utility I will use from time to time is called OnyX (Google it) which I find very good. BTW Apple recommends not shutting down your computer, in the owners manual it says to only shut it down if you are going to be away for a few days. In the preferences you can set the monitor and system to sleep after X amount of minutes that you specify. For example I have mine set to sleep after 15 minutes of non use.
Message was edited by: rkaufmann87

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Help with start up. new iMac 27" with Marericks installed has been giving me trouble with IDs and passwords. More than one account downloaded from older Laptop. Now the computer has the turning wheel in from of gray screen and won't go any further when

I recently started using my desktop iMac 27" and have been having problems since installing Mavericks, not saying that Mavericks is the problem per se. I think I have too many accounts with too many names, with too many Apple IDs and too many passwords, email passwords and Apple ID passwords, and keychain passwords, etc. Can't keep them straight even though I write everything down. The screen has been making me log in and log out with Account name and passwords after everything I've been doing, also confused about Users and Groups and how to sync everything. I finally just "shut down" everything and the screen was black. When I turned the computer on again, the circular gear in the middle just kept turning but nothing happened after that. Then I held the on button in the back until the screen went black again.
What should I do? Is there a way to combine all my accounts into one account with one Apple ID? I should say that I also have trying to use iCloud and it has different IDs and passwords. Also when I try to log in with one account name, I can't enter anything I write,and when I type on the keyboard, nothing appears on the screen, although I can receive emails, I can't send them.
In another account, what I type does appear on the screen, but I think it's an earlier account and doesn't translate aver to the other account. ALTHOUGH i set up iCloud accounts, they don't appear any more.
Very confused. Any Ideas about how I can get the computer to start up again and show a new screen?
Thanks to anyone who has workable suggestions.

If you really believe that your system has been compromised, here's what you do:
Disconnect your Mac from your cable modem;
Back up any documents on your system that are important to you;
Boot your Mac from the system installation disks that came with it (insert the disk, restart your Mac, and hold down the "c" key until you get the "spinning gear" icon);
Choose a language and click the arrow button to continue;
From the Utilities menu, choose Disk Utility;
In Disk Utility, select your computer's hard drive;
Click the "Erase" tab;
Click the "Security Options" button and select to have it overwrite all the data on the hard drive;
Click the "Erase" button and allow it to process;
Once the "erase process has completed (it will take a while), reinstall Mac OS X.
Or, if this is too much for you to accomplish on your own, take your system to an Apple Store and have them help you perform these steps. If your system was indeed compromised, this will remove any such hack. You can then set up a new user account for the computer, reinstall your applications (reinstall only from original disks or downloads from the company making the software) and documents, and reconnect to the Internet.
Note that when you reconnect to the cable modem, you may still get an IP address starting with 198. This is normal with some cable modems and probably not a cause for concern. It will not be an indication that your system is still compromised; that will not be possible if you perform all the above steps.
Regards.

HT202157 just started a new apple tv and also started using an iMac . I have itunes on the iMac but i cant get the apple tv to sync or find any settings to do so !

just started a new apple tv and also started using an iMac . I have itunes on the iMac but i cant get the apple tv to sync or find any settings to do so ! How can I get the iMac and apple tv to sync the itunes ? i have a internet connection between them , I have signed in to the itunes store on the apple tv and it shows that the apple tv is sharing my library from the IMac , but it wont sync and the apple tv has no content !

Welcome to the Apple Community.
The Apple TV (with the exception of the Apple TV 1) does not sync, it streams everything from your library on your computer or from the internet.

Does anyone know why or what is the reason when starting a new iMac with Lion a gray bar sometimes appears when loading software?

Does anyone know why or what is the reason when starting a new iMac with Lion, sometimes a gray bar appears under the Apple that begins to shade to dark as it loads OS? It does this on occasion. One time the system loaded was VERY slow and terrible colors. Pulled the plug, re-started the computer and it did not do this. As I say, its only on occasion, not every time. I noticed in the discussion page there were problems listed for 10.6 nothing for Lion.
Please advise, if possible.

You should see this 4 option menu. Click on Disk Utility:
In Disk Utility, Select FIRST AID and then VERIFY and then REPAIR the disk.
Ciao.

I migrated everything from my Snow Leopard iMac to my new Lion iMac and now whenever I launch an Adovbe app like Photoshop the Adobe Manager pops up and wants my serial numbers or to start a trial version. I don't have my CS5 serial

I migrated everything from my Snow Leopard iMac to my new Lion iMac and now when I launch anything in CS5 like Photoshop the Adobe Manager pops up and wants my serial numbers or to start a trial version. I don't have my CS5 serial numbers but wouldn't they migrate over with everything else?

but wouldn't they migrate over with everything else?
Are these PowerPC apps that ran on Rosetta with Snow Leopared?
If so you need to read these articles...
Lion upgrade questions and answers: Apple Support Communities
What applications are not compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion"? What upgrade or substitute options are available for common incompatible applications? @ EveryMac.com

Black/Blank Screen with Boot Camp Win 7 Install on new 27" iMac

I'm having a problem getting Windows 7 on a new 27" iMac and am familiar with the Boot Camp Windows installation process. Here's what I've done...
1. Run Boot Camp from OSX, partition the drive.
2. Insert Win 7 cd, proceed with installation.
3. Computer restarts and the 'preparing for initial setup' message displays with the Win 7 splash screen. When it switches to where it should be displaying the Win 7 desktop, the screen is black.
I can hear the Mac still running, but there's no display. It's like it's waiting for some type of user input for the intial Windows setup (haven't yet entered the key).
I've done a hard shutdown and restarted Windows with the exact same result. After reboot, I get the 'Windows was not shut down properly' message with the 3 safe mode options, where choosing either gets me the 'Windows cannot complete setup in safe mode'. And any key reboots it.
The Mac side still runs fine and holding the option key at start up gives the Mac/Win boot options.
I'm inclined to think that it's a video driver issue since the 27" is brand new. Maybe Apple used a new video card for the larger screen and haven't updated the Boot Camp drivers. I checked on ATI's site for an updated driver for the Radeon HD 4670 they say is in the new 27" model that's currently available. (not the quad core)
Is there any workaround for this? I was thinking of installing Vista instead, and upgrading to Win7 once installed, but if it's a driver thing, it would just be a long way to the same result and could have the same problem with Vista as well.
Any ideas?

I think I figured out what is happening here with the video drivers on the new iMac's and Win7. I believe it's re-directing the video to the mini display-port output when you see the screen go blank. I installed my Win7 x64 with no issues but I had an external monitor hooked up at the time and while it was installing the O/S my iMac went black but everything moved over to my external screen. Once it finished installing then everything went back to normal after a reboot.
Not sure if that helps anyone but pretty sure that's what is going on. So if you have another monitor handy, get the mini display-port adaptor from Apple and connect your external screen before you install Win7. Cheers!
P.S. If you have one of the new iMac's and want to install the latest Radeon drivers (after you have installed Win7 on your iMac), try the following. Download and install the drivers from ATI/AMD directly. They'll try to install and fail (no worries) but now the driver/install files will be unzipped into an ATI folder on your main Windows hard drive.
Now go to this site: http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php and download the tool and use the Vista instructions listed on the main page of the URL above. You shouldn't need to download the MSXML 6.0 and I don't think you need to disable the UAC stuff like they suggest for Vista (I didn't) and it works fine. UAC is not nearly as intrusive on Win7 as it is in Vista so I think that's why it worked for me and pretty sure the MSXML 6.0 is already in Win7. Once the program has modified the mobile Radeon drivers then you can run "setup" from your ATI directory and the new drivers will finally install correctly including the Catalyst Control Center. Voila! I now have 9.10 drivers up and running on my new 27" iMac and working perfectly so far.
James
Message was edited by: joudbren

My experiences & solutions to new overheating iMac

I know there are many threads concerning these overheating problem with some new aluminum iMacs but it's kind of hard to decide which one to post my experience to so I'm just posting a new thread. This is not a question because I think I fixed the problem with mine. I just wanted to share this with people in hopes that it might correct your problem as well instead having to take it back to the store.
Well, I bought a new 20" 2.4 aluminum iMac on August 24th. I connected my previous iMac to it and started migrating my user account & files to it. During this process is when the new iMac completely shut off on me! I thought it was just a glitch or something. So I turned it back on and it started the migration again. Everything went well this time. But since then it has turned off on me at least 3-4 times. When I was backing up files to an external drive. And a few times while working in Photoshop and Aperture it would start freezing up & the graphics would become distorted and blocks all over the screen. And from my days of overclocking PCs I knew this was a heat related problem more than likely with the video card.
So I installed a program called smcfancontrol and was able to up the speed of the fans. This corrected the problem and I didn't get lock ups or freezes after that. But I knew you shouldn't have to do this so I was looking for a solution so I wouldn't have to take the iMac back to the local Apple Store. Because that would be a pain having to backup files and start over again.
I reset the fans back to normal speed and quit the smcfancontrol program. I installed iStat Menus so I could monitor the fans & temp. It would seem that when the GPU would reach 150 deg F then it would start having problems. Well, I reset the SMC, PRAM, and NVRAM to see if this would solve the problem. Because what it seemed like what was happening was that the part of the system that controls the fans & temp was not responding correctly when it got hot.
Since I did the reset to those areas of the system I have not had any shut downs or freezes. I ran the system through a number of tests. I worked in Photoshop & Aperture at the same time doing a number of different processes while playing music in iTunes. I did the Hardware Test a couple of times. Xbench. And I also ran an pretty intensive test called CPUTest where it got the whole computer pretty hot through repetition. The fan for the CPU was speeding up over the normal 1200 rpm like it should and it never shut off or gave any more errors.
So I'm crossing my fingers now that the issue with my new iMac was resolved with resetting the SMC, PRAM, and NVRAM. And it saves me a trip back to the Apple Store!
I hope this information is helpful to someone.
Following these links on how to reset the SMC, PRAM, & NVRAM:
Intel-based iMac, Intel-based Mac mini: How to reset the System Management Controller
Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
-Kevin
*I have owned quite a few Macs over the past six years and have technician certifications in both Macs & PCs.*

Well, I've been wrestling with my iMac for the past week in trying to solve my freeze & shutdown problem so I wouldn't have to take it back to the Apple Store and also if I did then I would like to know what the problem is first so I can tell them if it is definitely a hardware problem. The freezes & shutdowns would happen at random times and I don't think it is a overheating problem now because of this. It did seem like it would happen more often when I would work in Aperture & Photoshop. I would get through editing 3 or 4 photos and it would lock up completing. Then I would have to do a hard reset.
Anyway, yesterday morning I reinstalled the OS via Archive & Install. It seemed to be running better. So I started working on some projects but again after doing some work for about an hour, it froze on me. I took a break because I was fed up with it at the time and came back to it later.
I decided to reset the SMC and PRAM again since I had not done that after the OS reinstall. Then I removed all extra cables except the extra display, keyboard, mouse, & speakers. I skimmed through 2000 photos in Aperture and I monitored the temp & fan speeds. The whole computer got pretty hot especially the CPU and video card (GPU). The CPU fan sped up to 1500rpm at one point like it should. And after getting through all those photos, it did not freeze or shut down on me at all. Woohoo!
And this morning I noticed that the computer went to sleep like it was supposed to. It never did that before. So I'm thinking maybe the OS reinstall and the second time of resetting the SMC & PRAM might have solved my problem. I'm crossing my fingers! I will be gradually plugging in my extra devices to make sure one of those is not the problem.
Anyway, I hope sharing my experiences have helped. I definitely know the AppleCare & "Genius" Bar hasn't been much help to me. Seems like all they know how to do is turn it on! I hate having the feeling that I know more than the people who are supposed to be qualified to be in that position. And as for AppleCare I got some guy from another country who had bad English and was obviously reading through a step by step handbook and wasn't listening to what I was saying very much.
Side note: It's obvious that Apple moved the power supply from below the screen to the upper left corner of the iMac. That's the reason it is warmer in that area. I wouldn't be concerned about that. These power supplies have always run that warm in the flat iMacs. Easier to feel on these new models though because they are thinner.
-Kevin

I backed up my old core 2 duo imac and and was trying to transfer files to my new 2011 imac and when i go to oppen a folder from what i transferred it says "The folder "Music" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents."?

I backed up my old core 2 duo imac and and was trying to transfer files to my new 2011 imac and when i go to oppen a folder from what i transferred it says "The folder “Music” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents". Why cant i access the files from my old mac? I tried the time machine and that isnt working either. I have files that I need to use on my new mac, all my old programs and such. I thought they said it was easy to get your files from one mac to another. Please help.

Your account names are probably different on the two Macs. If you know the UNIX command line, open a terminal window and run:
$ id
You should see a line that starts with something like this:
uid=501(your_user_id_here)
now check the owner of the folder you copied over:
$ ls -ld Music
drwx------+ 8 some_user_id_here staff 272 May 14 16:08 Music
Do the IDs match? If not, you could change the ownership. Say your id is "johnsmith"
$ chown -R johnsmith Music
Now try and access it with iTunes.

How do i sync my iPhone to a new macbook pro and start a new apple ID?

Ok, so I just go a new macbook pro for college, and what I am trying to do is sync my iphone with my new computer and get all my music etc onto the new mac. But i also want to start a new apple ID. I previously have had my iphone synced on the family's imac under the family apple id. Now i want to sync that iphone onto my computer and also start my own apple ID linked to my iphone and computer.
I can't figure out how to do this without having to reset the iphone.
( I already created the new ID)
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Here's an article in line with your request: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
It's called "iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer".

Can't boot from snow leopard bootable hard drive on my new 27 imac

Hey guys
I have just bought a new 27in Imac with all possible upgrades.
I have an old 2.2 MBP running snow leopard. I used carbon copy clone to make a bootable clone.
It will boot from the hard drive on my MBP ( the one I cloned it from) but it will not boot on my Imac.
I can select it from the boot screen ( holding down alt) but after I select it I just get the apple logo and nothing happens.
Can anyone shed some light on this for me? I have looked through tones of forums but can't seem to fine the answer.
Will the new mountain lion not boot snow leopard? If it can boot windows I don't see why it wouldn't boot my clone.
Thanks in advance peeps

I don't think it is fixable. Your new Mac has come installed with Mountain Lion. My understanding, from what I've learned on these boards, is that a Mac cannot boot from an OS earlier than the one that was installed at point of manufacture. I believe it is to do with the firmware that is on later models.
It also means that you cannot install an OS earlier than the one the machine came with (apparently this can be worked around by installing an earlier OS in a Virtual Machine, like some people install Windows on their Macs. This is not something I've done, but a regualr poster on here MichaelLAX, I think, has described how it's possible).
If you're wanting to just erase and start afresh with the MBP surely you can do that with the clone? You don't need the iMac to do that.

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? Only one Sparse Bundle, same name.

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? There is only one sparse bundle but when I enter time machine I don't see my historic backups. I use a synology DS212 for my time machine. Started a new backup which is 218gb but it says 618 gb is occupied therefore it looks like 2 or 3 backups are still on the disk. Before my NAS issues the last backup was in 2014. As you can see there is a second sparse bundle from 2012. Not sure what that is.

This is an old message now, but what happened to me similarly was:
I had a major computer crash and through complicated pathways ended up reinstalling (Mavericks) as a new user (long story).
At least I had good Time Machine backups on an NAS drive (Synology DS212j), or so I thought - when I started Time Machine up again, the old backup file was gone, replaced by a new one using my "new computer" name. The old file was gone both by directly mounting the NAS drive and by clicking "Enter Time Machine".
It's like I had {OldShareName}.sparsebundle and then it was replaced by {NewShareName}.sparsebundle, all of the old info vanished.
(I have spent a week finding old files elsewhere and have completed a satisfactory self-restore. It pays to "archive" [my own variation of] as well as "back-up".)
My belief is that if this were a wired-netword-drive, e.g. plugged right into my iMac with a USB cable, then the old file would have remained.
But this is an NAS drive, connected directly to my Airport wireless router, and I don't know the significance of the fact that it stores its Time Machine backups as "sparsebundle" files rather than simply as plain(er) files.
As usual when things get complicated with computers (not just Apple computers) there was never a warning message. Something like "YOU'RE ABOUT TO DELETE A TIME MACHINE BACK-UP FILE!!!" would have made my life a lot simpler.
BTW, I did try a "restore from Time Machine" option the first thing I had my "new computer" (old hardware, 2009 iMac) up and running, using Migration Assistant, and it ran for many hours and then failed in the wee hours - what that has to do with anything I'm not sure.
I'm not sure that I have a question about this other than "why do these things happen to me?", but it's a warning. Apart from that I've been very happy with the stability and reliability (but not the cost or set-up complexity) of NAS vs. directly-cabled external drives.
Charles

How do i set up a new lion imac from a snow leopard imac using time machine?

How do i set up a new lion imac from a snow leopard imac using time machine?

Connect the two via Firewire cable - Transferring files between two computers using FireWire. Boot the old iMac into Target Disk Mode. Boot the new iMac normally.
If you are starting the new iMac for the first time then do the above before you turn on the new iMac. After you turn on the new iMac you will begin in the Setup Assistant. When you complete the registration screens you will be offered an opportunity to migrate your data from another Mac. Follow the instructions to migrate your old Home folder, third-party applications and support files, and system preferences to the new iMac.
If you have already gone through the Setup Assistant and created an initial admin user account, then you do the connection step but will use Migration Assistant in the Utilities folder of the new iMac.

During the start up of my imac, logon failed

during the start up of my imac, logon failed and the user doesn't exit anymore . i have performed a password recovery and i'm using the mac root user. is it possible to recover my user and my profile ? and how ?
this problem exist from the moment in which i had change my id apple .
thanks

Ifd you go to /Users does your home folder still exists? If so, then go into Accouns and make a new user account with your same name, and this is very important, same short name. When you do, you will get a message that a home folder already existsd and would you like to use it, say yes and then log out and your account should be there. If there is no home folder your only option is to restore from a backup.

Brand new 27" iMac with Snow Leopard has constant hard disk activity

I just purchased a new 27" iMac which was an upgrade for my 24" with Leopard. I have used my older machine for a good year and not noticed any hard drive activity when idle.
Now on the new machine with Snow Leopard I constantly get hard disk activty every few seconds.
This will happen from:
1) Restart
2) leaving at login screen
3) loggin in and not running anything.
4) Computer screen in sleep mode.
5) well, all the time really.
I have looked at the activity monitor and can see spikes every 5-10 seconds.
I have turned off all processes possible, watched processes for CPU spikes, etc to no avail.
Is anyone else having the same problem and if so can they suggest a fix? I originally thought it may be something writing to a log every so often but I have no idea what and how to find it.
Using iStat just confirms the activity.
Hope you can help as this is driving me mad!
Message was edited by: RedDwarfUK

RedDwarfUK wrote:
I havent really installed much as well. Here are the list of programs I have installed.
Adium
Firefox
New icons
app cleaner
skype
spotify
chicken of the VNC
GoToMeeting
Cisco VPN Client
Xmarks for safari and firefox
I would start by checking each of these items, making sure you have the latest versions of each & that they are compatible with Snow Leopard. Do the same for any Firefox extensions or any plugins associated with any of these applications. In particular, chicken of the VNC hasn't been updated since 2006 & what little compatibility info I can find for it suggests it supports only Tiger (10.4) & 10.3.9. The Download Xmarks page indicates that it is beta software.
Also note that some of these items may do more than just run as applications. On first run or install, some might install startup or login items, or preference panels that remain in effect even when the application is not running. Check /Library/StartupItems & /System/Library/StartupItems -- both are empty by default, so anything you find in them is suspect. Likewise, check the System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items tab. Anything you find in them that does not appear to come from Apple (like iTunes helper) is suspect. Also check the "Other" category of System Preferences.

IMessage not working when I start a new conversation iOS 6

Hey guys, the thing now is that since I updated my iPhone 4S to iOS 6 is like the phone does not recognize my iMessage contacts.
I can use iMessage, but the thing is that I only can send an iMessage if I go to my messages box and open an old iMessage conversation.
If I want to start a new conversartion the send button never turns blue.
I even tryied from Siri. Didn't work.
It is not so bad but still annoying.
As an additional information, in Ecuador, they just added a new digit in the international code. It shouldn't be a problem because my mobile number is already accepted by iMessage on my iphone settings.
Hope you can help guys. I would be very grateful.

UPDATE:
I just discovered that the problem is that from my Messages software in my iMac mobile numbers are not recognized (even if they were accepted on the iMessage settings on my phone).
If I send a message to my imessage contact, that contact receives it as a normal SMS but when he answers it is sent as an iMessage and then I can reply as an iMessage.
But it is not possible to avoid the waste of that SMS.
Maybe is the new digit thing.

Start-Up new 27" iMac

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