Move installation from one user to another?

[vmills]

I bought a new Macbook Pro from MacMall and had parallels and windows xp preinstalled. They set up a user account named "user". I then used Migration Assistant to move my own user account "vicki" from an iMac to the Macbook Pro. Yes, you're right, I didn't think this through very well as I'm not used to buying new computers or to Parallels.

Now I have two users where I'd like only one. Is there a way to move Parallels related files to "vicki" or am I better off reinstalling Windows XP under "vicki" and then deleting "user". I think I'll have to use Terminal to delete the user account but I also want to make sure I don't botch things up by reinstalling and then deleting the user. I know this is partly about user accounts on Tiger, but I also hope this question is appropriate to this forum. I'm running 10.4.8

 

[joem]

If Parallels is the only thing you want to move, you can just copy a few files and change their ownership and permissions. Log into User, and change permissions on ~library/parallels to full access for everyone. Include the files and folders under it.

Then log in as Vicki, and move the directory /users/user/library/parallels to ~/library/

Then change the owner of ~/library/parallels (and everything under it) to Vicki, and change access permissions to full access for owner and group and no access for world.

Then under ~/library/parallels, find the VM directory, and double click the .pvs file. This should launch Parallels. In the Parallels console, check the location of the virtual disk (Disk1) and change the location if it doesn't point to the "Vicki" version.

Then after you save your changes, you should be able to start the VM and run XP.

(The "~" is shorthand for the user area for the currently logged in user.)

Once everything is working, you can delete the user from accounts in system preferences. This is much easier than using Terminal.