How to reclaim a Mac computer
I have a client with a few Mac computers. I am not familiar with Mac at all. The issue with one computer in particular is that it was originally used be an employee who is no longer available. When trying to do an update, I am prompted for the password of the non existent employee for an i-tunes account.
Is it possible to remove reference to i-tunes?
If an i-tunes connection is necessary, is it possible to create an administrative i-tunes account so that updates, etc are not dependent upon an individual user?
Is it possible or advisable to restore the computer to factory default and then start over?
I think the operating system is termed sierra
Is it possible to remove reference to i-tunes?
If an i-tunes connection is necessary, is it possible to create an administrative i-tunes account so that updates, etc are not dependent upon an individual user?
Is it possible or advisable to restore the computer to factory default and then start over?
I think the operating system is termed sierra
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I believe it has Microsoft Office on it. Is there a program similar to produkey that would extract the license key from the Mac?
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Wilf wrote:
Office does indeed have some licensing files, one of which can be found here:
Library/Preferences/com.mi
The actual license string is not human readable and it might not even be the only file; I did only a cursory search. It would also depend on how the suite was purchased, be it a company license, an App Store download or even a boxed copy from a store (assuming these are still available). As such, I don't know if they are transferable, even to the same machine after a wipe. I have never tried license key extraction apps so I can't comment on that idea.
Before going too far, I would ask a few questions on how the software was bought.
As to iTunes, the answers above from others show how difficult it can be to recover anything from an account that might have belonged to a previous user. I generally recommend the approach taken by serialband: one corporate IT maintained Apple ID for all purchases on company owned Apple computers.
I believe it has Microsoft Office on it. Is there a program similar to produkey that would extract the license key from the Mac?
Office does indeed have some licensing files, one of which can be found here:
Library/Preferences/com.mi
The actual license string is not human readable and it might not even be the only file; I did only a cursory search. It would also depend on how the suite was purchased, be it a company license, an App Store download or even a boxed copy from a store (assuming these are still available). As such, I don't know if they are transferable, even to the same machine after a wipe. I have never tried license key extraction apps so I can't comment on that idea.
Before going too far, I would ask a few questions on how the software was bought.
As to iTunes, the answers above from others show how difficult it can be to recover anything from an account that might have belonged to a previous user. I generally recommend the approach taken by serialband: one corporate IT maintained Apple ID for all purchases on company owned Apple computers.
Office 2004 and 2008 don't have a license file. Office 2011 has a license file that can be copied. The latest office needs reactivation if you copy it to another system. The license file is keyed to the system. iTunes software is keyed to the user that "purchased" it from the App Store. You need the account and password to update those.
If you have your own "purchase", you must delete the other user's purchase and download your own copy. You can get a volume license and just use a single admin account and use that to distribute the downloaded apps to all the systems. You can actually just copy those Apps into place.
If you have your own "purchase", you must delete the other user's purchase and download your own copy. You can get a volume license and just use a single admin account and use that to distribute the downloaded apps to all the systems. You can actually just copy those Apps into place.
I suppose you could just do rm -rfv /Applications/iTunes to remove all traces of iTunes + be aware... iTunes plumbs into many other technologies, so for example iTunes is used to sync/backup other devices like iPhones... so obliterating iTunes may have unforeseen consequences... today... then other unforeseen consequences at some point in the future.
Best to leave iTunes alone, lest you end up spending a truckload of time trying to debug some oddball error at some point.
Best once you do a fresh install, to then install all updates, which might include a full OS update.