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I'll give a bit of back story so this makes more sense:

I was pre installing and configuring some stuff for a family member's new Mac mini. It was shipped to my place so they haven't ever used it and in the process of setting things up I had to run iTunes and other included apps.

The first time you run them, they open up a pop up that guides you though basic usage. How can I reset that before I hand it to them, so they see the tutorial when they first run the app?

There are also some non-Apple programs, like Office 2011 and Spotify, which I would like to do this for. So any general pointers that could help with that would be appreciated.

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In most Apple apps that have first-run tutorials, you can still access them through the Help menu. For example in iTunes there is Help -> iTunes Tutorials, and in iPhoto there is Help -> Welcome to iPhoto.

To get them to show on launch again, I think you will have to edit the preferences files for each application. This is a pain because they don't implement this in a consistent manner.

All the preferences are located in ~/Library/Preferences. The library in your home folder is hidden by default in Lion, so you will have to use one of the many methods to show it.

It's different for each app, but here's an example. In com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist change

<key>dontShowWhatsNew</key>
<true/>

to

<key>dontShowWhatsNew</key>
<false/>

Numbers and Keynote are similar but uses <integer>1</integer> that should be changed to <integer>0</integer>. iPhoto has the same key, as well as <key>FirstLaunch</key>, but changing them doesn't seem to work.

If you can't find the necessary key, deleting the plist file will often work. This won't break anything, but be warned that you will lose any custom preferences for that app.

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I'm not sure this are the movies you are referring to, but Apple has made a lot of useful tutorials about using a Mac. From beginner to some more experienced... You can find them on the Apple website.

And to answer your other questions, you can find extensive documentation and how-to's about Spotify and Office for Mac on their websites.

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  • I appreciate the response, and those videos will surely be helpful for her to get set up. However, I was hoping to reset the in-app tutorials that activate on first run. They have the benefit of being integrated into the app and running right when someone would be baffled by all these new buttons that appeared before them. In windows, it's something I would do in the registry most likely, or in some config file in the app folder.
    – Julio R.
    Mar 18 '12 at 16:41
  • Ok, I'm still searching, so please hold on!
    – Michiel
    Mar 18 '12 at 16:45

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