Your Mac needs at least one administrator account. At this point in the setup process, you will be asked to create the first user account, which will also be the administrator account.
Create the Administrator Account
- Enter your name in the ‘Name’ field. You can use spaces, capital letters, and punctuation. This will be your account user name.
- Enter a short name in the ‘Short Name’ field. OS X uses the short name as the name for your Home directory, and for the internal user account information used by various system tools. The short name is limited to 255 lower case characters, with no spaces allowed. Although you can use up to 255 characters, try to keep the name short. The most common methods are to lowercase a full name (for example, tomnelson), or to use a first initial and last name (for example, tnelson). Short names are very difficult to change once they’ve been created, so be sure that you’re happy with the short name you create before you continue.
- Enter a password for the administrator account.
- Enter the password a second time in the ‘Verify’ field.
- Optionally, you can enter a descriptive hint about the password in the ‘Password Hint’ field. This should be something that will jog your memory if you forget your password. Do not enter the actual password.
- Click the ‘Continue’ button.
- Select a picture from the list of available images. This picture will be associated with your user account, and will appear during login and other events while you’re using your Mac. If you have an iSight or a compatible webcam connected to your Mac, you will be offered the option to use the webcam to take your picture, and to use that image with your account.
- Make your selection, and click the ‘Continue’ button.
