modifying the dock for new users

[manofmusic]

Okay, I'm basically a Windows guy who has occasionally messed around with a Mac. Right now, I'm trying to set up a Mac Mini running 10.4 for a computer lab environment. The users will be logging in through Active Directory, which I've already set up and got working fine.

My current challenge is that I'm trying to figure out how to modify the dock for all new users. The dock normally opens up with just Apple's programs (iTunes, Safari, QuickTime, etc.), but I want to modify that to also include things like Word and Excel. Is there any way to do that? On a PC, I'd just go to the default user profile and make changes there, but I can't find anywhere that the default user settings are stored on the Mac. The other related thing is that I want to remove System Preferences from the dock for new users... I don't want anyone to have a really easy way to mess around with the system, unless they know what they're doing.

Any thoughts?

 

[yippy]

Yes you can do this. At my work we have almost the same setup. AD authentication and a customized dock.

I don't remember how to do this but it is around if you do enough digging. I think it is something like create a user and set it up how you want it and then take the dock preference file and put it in a default user folder that is buried in the System folder.

With enough digging you should be able to find the instructions, or hopefully someone here knows off hand.

 

[Sky Blue]

Yes, there is a default user profile in OS X.
It's stored in:
/System/Library/User Templates/English.lproj

(You will have to give yourself access to this folder)

You can create a new default user and set the dock up how you like, then copy the dock plist to this default user template.

Some good info here:

http://www.bombich.com/mactips/files/workshop.pdf

 

[3rdfinger]

Does anyone know what files are needed to setup the default profile info so OFFICE 2008 MAC doesn't prompt with the MICROSOFT OFFICE SETUP ASSISTANT every time an Active Directory member logs in?

tnks!

-JS

 

[3rdfinger]

Does anyone know what files are needed to setup the default profile info so OFFICE 2008 MAC doesn't prompt with the MICROSOFT OFFICE SETUP ASSISTANT every time an Active Directory member logs in?

tnks!

-JS

so far i figured it out.

here are the files i used..

~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/*
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/*
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.*.plist

after changing the read, right permissions to ALL, i put them in the User Templates folder (leopard) and it Word, Excel, Powerpoint (office 2008) opened with each Active Directory account without prompting the initial user setup box.

-JS