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Hide system-wide preference panes from non-admin users
Authored by: extra88 on Oct 09, '03 01:59:20PM

I would remove access for "Others" to the Pane's folder then change the folder's group from "wheel" to "admin." This allows admins to still see and use the Pane but non-admins don't even have the pane show up.

To change permissions:
sudo chmod 750 /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Accounts.prefPane
To change group membership:
sudo chgrp admin /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Accounts.prefPane

Note that I'm not using the Recursive options, you don't need to change the permissions or group membership for anything inside the directory.

As someone else mentioned, Repair Permissions would overwrite these changes. The only way to avoid that is to move the PrefPane to the home directory of one account. Of course then that one account is the only one which can use the PrefPane. There's also a good chance a PrefPane could get reinstalled by an OS update. I would stick with modifying permissions and but save the above commands in a script to make reapplying the change easy.



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Hide system-wide preference panes from non-admin users
Authored by: governator on Oct 09, '03 03:03:18PM

you guys are failing to see the simple solution:

just go to capabilities in the Users Control Panel and set the user to use "Simple Finder" and only the apps you want them to be able to access. no problem



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