Can I lockout access to preferences

[ChrisH3677]

I've set up a user account on the Mac for my 9yo boy who likes to explore and tinker and fiddle with things... So I love the way OSX lets me almost totally lock down the system.

But it has one small hole... System Preferences. It has the preferences for Date, International, Energy Saver and Network all accessible from the Menu Extras.

System Preferences is not ticked in the allowed applications in his user account (which is set to Simplified).

Altho these all require administrator password to change, it then does give access to other preferences.

I really want to lock this down totally so nothing can be changed. Harsh I know, but he's already been hacking on our old PC so I want to discourage that.

So anyway I had to go into each of those menu extras, and remove it from the menu bar.

So now I'd locked it down totally? No. A hole. You can access dock preferences by command-clicking the dock separator. There's probably other ways too I haven't found, of getting into the preferences.

I don't mind that he can get to the preferences, but I want them all to be locked and customizable by an administrator only.

So, is that possible? I figure people who have their Macs on public access must have the same requirement.

thanks

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I've set up a user account on the Mac for my 9yo boy who likes to explore and tinker and fiddle with things... So I love the way OSX lets me almost totally lock down the system.

But it has one small hole... System Preferences. It has the preferences for Date, International, Energy Saver and Network all accessible from the Menu Extras.

System Preferences is not ticked in the allowed applications in his user account (which is set to Simplified).

Altho these all require administrator password to change, it then does give access to other preferences.

I really want to lock this down totally so nothing can be changed. Harsh I know, but he's already been hacking on our old PC so I want to discourage that.

So anyway I had to go into each of those menu extras, and remove it from the menu bar.

So now I'd locked it down totally? No. A hole. You can access dock preferences by command-clicking the dock separator. There's probably other ways too I haven't found, of getting into the preferences.

I don't mind that he can get to the preferences, but I want them all to be locked and customizable by an administrator only.

So, is that possible? I figure people who have their Macs on public access must have the same requirement.

thanks

Here's the thing - the system-level preferences, found in System Preferences, can be locked fairly easily, as you've discovered. However, application-level preferences, such as those for the Dock, Finder, and all other applications, can't be locked anywhere near as easily. In fact, the only way I know of to lock Finder and Dock preferences is to use the management capabilities of Mac OS X Server, and other application-specific preferences can't be locked down AT ALL using tools built in to Mac OS X. I suspect people with public-access Macs are using Mac OS X Server to administer them.

 

[parenthesis]

What if you were to deny access to the System Preferences app by moving it to your home directory? (and moved it back to the apps folder if you needed to use it, if necessary)

 

[wrldwzrd89]

What if you were to deny access to the System Preferences app by moving it to your home directory? (and moved it back to the apps folder if you needed to use it, if necessary)

I don't think you read the original post thoroughly - that won't work, and isn't needed. ChrisH3677 already locked the System Preferences application through the Mac OS X account security options, so there's no need to move it. Even if it was moved, that still doesn't block access to things like the Dock preferences and Finder preferences.

 

[Veldek]

Perhaps I don’t understand the problem correctly, but can’t you lock each preference pane seperately by clicking the lock? Then a user would be able to look at them but not to alter them, which is what you want, isn’t it? I don’t know if it’s possible to achieve that a user isn’t able to look at his own preferences and there are some preferences (Dock, Finder) which should be accessible by each user in my opinion.

 

[7on]

Yeah, the reason that he can change stuff like Dock and Finder preferences is because it'll only affect his account. Your account will be untouchable (as well as anything that spans multiple accounts since he is nonadmin).

 

[virividox]

or you could get him his own computer