Regsitering Software on a Mac in a Buisness Enviroment?
I maintain a Windows network at an office of 50 computers and I have one Mac user in an offsite office, one person alone in an office with their Mac and an Internet connection. The Mac and all of the software on it was bought by the company I support. All is good with this Mac user but I made the mistake of setting the Mac up with my Apple ID and it is causing problems. He logs into the Mac with his Apple ID but every time he tries to update Office for Mac it wants my Apple ID username and password.
Can I change the Apple ID used for Office for Mac?
Can I uninstall Office for Mac and reinstall it with an different Apple ID?
I would rather not have employees use their personal Apple IDs to register company software.
What is the best way to register software on a Mac in a business environment so that the end user can update it but the software remains the property of the company?
Can I change the Apple ID used for Office for Mac?
Can I uninstall Office for Mac and reinstall it with an different Apple ID?
I would rather not have employees use their personal Apple IDs to register company software.
What is the best way to register software on a Mac in a business environment so that the end user can update it but the software remains the property of the company?
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By "Office for Mac" do you mean "iWork, i.e. Keynote, Pages and/or Numbers"? Office isn't sold on the Mac App Store and therefore wouldn't be tied to an AppleID. The apps that are, however, should be deleted completely from the Applications folder and re-downloaded after you've signed out of the old AppleID and back in as the new one.
However, Serialband's suggestion for how to manage AppleIDs in a corporate environment is spot on. Each employee should have an ID with their corporate email address (separate from what they use at home) and purchases (especially with the Volume Purchase Program) can be asisgned and revoked from these IDs and since they can know the passwords, it can be updated by them. Of course, you can also turn on auto-updates for the App Store so that's a good way to force them all.
However, Serialband's suggestion for how to manage AppleIDs in a corporate environment is spot on. Each employee should have an ID with their corporate email address (separate from what they use at home) and purchases (especially with the Volume Purchase Program) can be asisgned and revoked from these IDs and since they can know the passwords, it can be updated by them. Of course, you can also turn on auto-updates for the App Store so that's a good way to force them all.
If you have a newer Mac, then Keynote, Pages and Numbers comes with the system. You can reinstall the Mac OS on these newer systems and get fresh copies without IDs attached. I suggest you zip them up or copy them to the root account so that you can put them back without having to reinstall the OS. They only get tied to an AppleID when the first user updates them.
The bigger issue is what do you do with this. Updates from the App store are going to require the user ID and password of the Apple ID associated with the product regardless of how the user logs into the Mac. So even if you have some generic company Apple ID, the user is still going to need to know what the ID and PW are. So perhaps you trust him with that so that he can do the updates and the company keeps control of the software. If/When he leaves you change the password so that he can't continue to use the product, but that assumes that the leaving is amicable and he's trustworthy to NOT change the PW before he leaves so that you can continue to manage it.
Apple does have a volume purchase program (https://vpp.itunes.apple.com/faq), but not sure your company would qualify.
Perhaps if it's just this one user you have him use his Apple ID and purchase his own software for which you reimburse him and if he leaves he takes the product with him.