Disable Dashboard and Widgets

Question

Disable Dashboard and Widgets

I am in an educational setting and would like to disable student's ability to install and utilize Widgets under Tiger (10.4.X). Ideally, I would like to block this via the Parental Controls. Thanks!

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Nov 9, 2007 12:02 PM

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Answer 1

joshz

Level 4

3,290 points

Nov 9, 2007 1:29 PM in response to Russell Lindenschmidt

If you use remote desktop, post here.
Otherwise, log in as admin on the computer you want to restrict, go to >System Preferences...>Accounts>Student Account.
Click Parental Controls.
Click the checkbox next to finder + system, click Configure, check "this user can only use the following applications", and uncheck any you don't want them to use.
Good luck!

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Answer 2

Nov 13, 2007 8:18 AM in response to joshz

This does not help as 10.4.X does not treat the Dashboard as one single 'app'. I want the ability to completely disable the usage of Dashboard (sorry, probably should have been more clear), not individual widgets. The method described above won't accomplish this. Anyone else?

null

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Answer 3

Nov 13, 2007 10:25 AM in response to Russell Lindenschmidt

Two simple commmands. Not thru Parental Controls, but works all the same:
-Fire up Terminal
-Type the line below, then press Return.

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
This makes the Dashboard unavailable.

-Type the line below, then press Return.

killall Dock
This restarts the dock.

-If you ever want Dashboard back, type this and press Return

defaults write come.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO

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Answer 4

joshz

Level 4

3,290 points

Nov 14, 2007 4:12 AM in response to Russell Lindenschmidt

sorry about that. I should have done my homework first.
I'm glad you solved your problem!

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Answer 5

Nov 30, 2007 9:26 AM in response to Russell Lindenschmidt

I have a mix of laptop and desktop labs that I need to disable Dashboard on. I used the default write and killall Dock on a lab of iMac's. It worked fine. I have a lab of MacBook's, when I use the commands on these, Dashboard still works. I looked at com.apple.dashboard and mcx-disable is set to 1. I've deleted com.apple.dashboard, ran the commands, but Dashboard still works.

Any ideas why this may not be working? I'm at a loss.

Tom

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Answer 6

Klaus1

Level 9

52,879 points

Nov 30, 2007 9:33 AM in response to Russell Lindenschmidt

The free utility Tinkertool enables you to disable Dashboard, and therefore also all widgets.

I have always had those disabled!

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Answer 7

Nov 30, 2007 12:22 PM in response to Klaus1

Thanks Russ for the suggestion, but Tinkertool did not disable Dashboard. I also tried another utility
that did not disable it also.

The com.apple.dashboard.plist file which seems to be the controlling factor shows msx-disabled as true. In fact, I copied one from a system (intel imac) where it does work, to a MacBook and it seems to ignore it. I hate these kind of problems.

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Answer 8

Nov 30, 2007 1:01 PM in response to Russell Lindenschmidt

Ok... now this...
I had some problems with loading the widgets. They didn't appear on Dashboard.
Thus I decided to try to unable dashboard with the comand here posted (defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES)...
But, When I tried to have it back, with the other command (defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES), it didn't work!
I wasn't being able to see my widgets, but now I can't even run my dashboard again!
What do I do?

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