Disable the ability to change wallpapers

[dodge this]

Hi,
I have a lab of Macs and I deal with high school kids. About 98% of them follow the simple rule of not changing wallpapers.... but I have a pesky few that try to get away with it.

I disabled their use of System Preferences and iPhoto, which were the two big ways to change wallpapers. However, in Snow Leopard, if you right click an image, the last option you are given in the menu is to "make desktop image" which makes it the wallpaper. This is allowed even if Preview and System Preferences is disabled.

I know it can be done via Safari too, but I want to work on this sneaky way first. Is there a way I can disable this feature via the right click menu?

And yes, sadly, I need to keep right click turned on. That is not an option to turn off.....

 

[Mal]

Just delete the file: /System/Library/Services/Set Desktop Picture.workflow

I suspect that will remove the same option from Safari as well, but I'm not certain of that.

jW

 

[dodge this]

This worked well for the whole right-click preview trick. Thanks!

Would anyone know how to disable the ability to set the desktop from pictures in Safari?

Just delete the file: /System/Library/Services/Set Desktop Picture.workflow

I suspect that will remove the same option from Safari as well, but I'm not certain of that.

jW

 

[Mal]

Actually, thought I'd take a stab at this from the opposite direction: Try setting the permissions on ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist to Read only for the user. They shouldn't be able to change the desktop image via any method if you do that.

Also, I can't recall the name, but there's a software program that will reset all settings and remove files when someone logs out, so that the system will restore itself each time back to the condition you prefer. Someone else can probably chime in with the name of the program. It's often used for exactly these types of situations.

jW

 

[wgkealey]

I believe the program you're referring to is called "Deep Freeze," but IMO its completely overpriced.