Just cancelled the Sonoma upgrade that my son initiated on my iMac via his standard user account. He said he was able to start it by entering his account password. There is only one admin account on this iMac. Is this normal and if so how do you limit upgrades to only Admin accounts?
iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15
D-avid-P wrote:
Is this normal
Yes.
how do you limit upgrades to only Admin accounts?
You would need an MDM for this kind of control. See About software updates for Apple devices - Apple Support
These days, it is best for each device to belong to an individual person. Sharing computers really isn't supported anymore.
D-avid-P wrote:
Is this normal
Yes.
how do you limit upgrades to only Admin accounts?
You would need an MDM for this kind of control. See About software updates for Apple devices - Apple Support
These days, it is best for each device to belong to an individual person. Sharing computers really isn't supported anymore.
D-avid-P wrote:
One person per device? Have you heard of children?
Yes. Small, strange creatures that have been alive for only a few years yet seem to have so much to talk about. They live in a different world than we did at their age. Apple recognizes this and assumes that its customers will not be sharing devices. You can either accept it, try to fight it and reward yourself with a poor experience, or move to a different platform with a poor experience.
Unless your son's account is actually been given admin privilege he shouldn't be able to install any updates. Go to System Settings > Users & Groups to check if his account is admin. I realize you mentioned there is only one admin but it won't hurt to double check. Or did he possibly log in as you or the single admin account without mentioning that?
He is not admin. I was not logged in. He did not log in as me nor did he use my password. The upgrade was 75% downloaded when I was able to cancel it. As a standard user he should not have been able to get that started.
He initiated the entire process. There isn’t an option to just download the installer. From my experience once you enter the user password to start the upgrade, the entire process completes. I was able to cancel while it as still downloading.
does anyone have the actual Answer to my question?
The upgrade process seems to be different from previous versions. But I guess admin privileges should be required to really update/upgrade.
"this is offered through Software Update as an update rather than a full upgrade, so if your Mac is already running a recent version of Ventura, it won’t download the full Install macOS Sonoma app, but go straight into the update process. Please be careful!"
https://eclecticlight.co/2023/09/26/apple-has-released-macos-14-sonoma/
Will look into that. One person per device? Have you heard of children? lol. No way… they can share one iMac. I’ll administer it. No way I want them installing anything though, and not even gonna consider the goofy family sharing setup.
So, he didn't install Sonoma, he just downloaded the installer?
I don't know what would happen when it tried to run.
Sorry my answer bothers you so, but the installer has always asked for admin credentials before initiating the install.
It's possible that has changed in Sonoma, but you haven't show that it has.
Can I prevent Standard Users from upgrading MacOS?
