changed the name of shortname - messed it up?

i accidentally clicked continue when setting up my mac so my shortname was juts my full name without a space and i couldn't go back and change it

so after a while i saw my short name in my mac HD and just renamed it to the one i wanted

apparently this is bad and now i have 2 users or something
files download to different desktops and everything is sorta out of place and messed up

what can i do to fix it- ive tried dragging my new shortname stuff into the original but i cant delete the old short name and its like the default one now?

anyway to fix this?

 

also i dont know if this is related but it seems like it

my applications keep closing out because of an error or something and i can close or reopen it

when i open the program again all my settings go back to default

should i just reinstall the os lol

 

I did that once. It's not a good thing. To fix the problem I think all I did was change the name back and then I copied the files to the correct directory and finally deleted the duplicates. It's difficult for me to describe the exact process since I only did it once. Hope that helps.

Have you seen Apple's documentation: Mac OS X: How to change user short name or home directory name. To me that document illustrates the complications of why I will not make those changes .

 

lol i think i may have messed this up beyond repair
when i try to rename it back to the original it tells me that one is already taken so theres definitely two names

ill read through that link thanks
but if you know a quickj solution to remake the old one the default one that would be awesome
(as in make the old one have the house icon instead)

 

What applications specifically? Did you install them properly?

When you download a Mac application it's usually a .dmg file. From that point you double-click the .dmg to mount a disk drive and drag the contents of the drive (the actual application) to the Application folder on your hard disk drive. At this point you can eject the mounted disk and run the application by opening it from you Applications folder. A good example of this procedure is this boring video of How to Install Firefox.

 

yea i followed it for firefox and did what said and that is one of the programs that is doing it

also AIM is doing it as well

 

You could reinstall the OS, that would probably solve all your problems. It's actually not that inconvenient to reinstall Mac OS X. If you do decide to do this make sure you look into the customization options when you approach the "Installation Type" step (I think that's what the step is called).

With that said, when I have problems with Applications I try Repairing Disk Permissions and then Uninstall/Reinstall the Application if necessary.

AIM is horrible for OS X, definitely uninstall that. The AIM Installer actually has an Uninstall option too (click where it says "Easy Install" and select "Uninstall"). Instead of AIM, use Adium.

 

alright thanks for all info xander you are extremely helpful lol

ill reinstall osx and then start from there, good thing i havent really done too much so far =)

 

OK, cool. Ironically, I think "Reinstall OS X" would be a good step to add to the "What Should I Do Right Away?" guide.

Peace.

 

im installing the os now and either it is extremely simple or did something wrong

i followed the instruction booklet and its installing on the mac HD
it didnt mention anything about the previous os install, does it auto recognize it and delete it and redo everything? lol

 

It is really simple, but there are customizable options available if you look for them.

Perhaps this document will shed some light: Mac OS X 10.4: About installation options.

 

yea i went thru and got rid of stuff ill never use

thanks again everything should be good to go now

 

No problem, sounds good . Keep posting if you have any further questions, I'm sure someone will be able to help you out. Oh, and remember, worst case scenario, Apple has excellent customer service if you run into any major problems. Peace.