I have only one suggestion which would get the permissions working correctly; and even with this you may run into some strange permissions issues.
On the new machine; don't create the account that you want to merge the two other accounts into yet. Immediately after creating the first admin account; manually copy the largest of the two home directories from the backup (or restore from Time Machine)…note that you might have to copy this someplace besides /Users first and then give yourself full R/W permissions with "apply to enclosed items" checked before you can copy them. Next; copy the contents of the various sub folders in the smaller home directory to be merged into the one copied above…or restore from Time Machine and then combine the two folders. Make sure the folder in /Users has the correct user name for the account you're going to create. Next, create the new account. System Preferences will tell you it found an existing homedir and ask if you want to use it or make another one. Choose Use It and it System Prefs will create the new user and (supposedly) fix the permissions. I have done this numerous times in the past but recently did it for the first time under Mountain Lion (long story involving failed SSD on Retina MBP not repeated here). The first time I did it; the resulting account had some really, really strange permissions problems…I couldn't delete items on the desktop without providing an admin password, moving something from the desktop to elsewhere in ~/home resulted in a copy instead of a move, and other similar issues. Don't know why it didn't work. On Nov 30, 2012, at 6:47 PM, Jeff Weinberger <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi: > > Second question of the day (thank you for your patience and help!). > > I just ordered the new iMac, and hope it will arrive sometime this year (read > that sarcastically). > > Right now, I have an ancient iMac which was my main computer, but now barely > functions. It has many of my files, settings, etc. As it degraded, I started > to use my user account on my wife's much-newer iMac, which now has some of my > newer files and newer settings, and other stuff I want. > > The easiest way for me to start with a new computer is to restore it from a > (e.g. time machine) backup. > > Is there any equivalent process that can merge these two user account on > different iMacs into the one? or am I dreaming? > > Any ideas are very much appreciated! > > Thanks, > > Jeff > _______________________________________________ > MacOSX-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk ----------------------------------------------- There are only three kinds of stress; your basic nuclear stress, cooking stress, and A$$hole stress. The key to their relationship is Jello. neil _______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
