10.4: Prevent 10.4.7 from checking for Widget updates

Jul 07, '06 07:30:05AM

Contributed by: Michael Zandstra

When you update Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.4.7, Dashboard starts 'phoning home' -- it checks for updates on the internet for your widgets on the following two URLs:

http://www.apple.com/widgets/widgetadvisory
http://www.apple.com/widgets/parser.info

For this, it launches a process called dashboardadvisoryd, and checks every day for new widgets. Quite handy you might think, but on large networks, you probably would like to prevent this.

Login with an administrative account and open Terminal, then execute the following command:

$ sudo vi /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist
When asked for a password, retype your own password to verify that it's still you and not someone else. Next type an i to enter input mode, and add the following two lines below the line that reads <dict>:
        <key>Disabled</key>
        <true/>
Press Escape to leave the edit mode and type :wq, followed by Enter, to save the file and quite the editor. The file is saved and mach_init.d won't start this process anymore. Now type the following command:
$ sudo vi 
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dashboard.advisory.fetch.plist
and enter input mode once again by pressing i, and after the line that reads <dict>, we also add the lines:
        <key>Disabled</key>
        <true/>
Leave the input mode and save the file as before. Now restart your computer, and this process won't start automatically.

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one...]

Comments (22)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060705012530786