Installing HP color printer but no Admin Password

S

Smashypie

Registered
Hello All,

Please excuse my inexperience as a new Mac OS X person as I am in fact a Windows expert. I was just at a client's house today trying to install a regular HP Color printer on his computer. I followed the instructions given by HP for Macintosh diligently. I unpacked printer, plugged in power, plugged in usb, powered it on, put in the CD drive... and this is where it ended.

Trying to run the installer from the CD drive asked me to "Authenticate" by entering the Admin password (I assume for the Mac OS X machine). The client had no idea what the password was and we tried several possibilities.

I then turned to downloading the software off the HP website to try and get somewhere. After the large download, I tried to run it but then gave me this "continue" or "intialize" option on the disk utility. I had no idea what this meant, but initialize seemd to be the way to go. Nothing happened so I tried redownloading and it said that I could not run it because it was already being run on another volume. I could not see anything to indicate this.

How do I bypass the Admin password requirement for installing an HP Printer? Anyway I can reset the password? Could I call up Apple to help me with a specific issue?

I know how to get around this in Windows, but not in Mac OS X. Please help me if you can. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You
 
The HP installer was asking for the administrator password. This is the same password that you (the user) would use if you log out, then choose to log back in to the same account. Almost all software installs ask for this password. If your user doesn't have any idea about that password, it can be reset by booting to the OS X installer disk.
Very simple to do that, just insert the disk, and restart, holding the letter C. The installer will boot the Mac, and at the first screen, you will see menus at the top of the screen, where you can choose Reset (or Change) Password from either the Installer menu or the Utilities menu (whichever one you see)
Select the drive, and click on the account name, and change the password to something the user will remember.

sidenote: The little password is one of the reasons the Mac OS X has little trouble from viruses. An installer will ask for permission, and you should be aware enough to not allow an unknown install, when you are not installing anything. Nice?
 
Thank You very much for this very nicely laid out process. I will be sure to try it, as well as any other suggestions folks recommend. All the best.
 
You might want to just try adding the printer in the Printer Setup Utility in the Utility folder. OS X includes most drivers.
 
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