Comments on: MCX vs the screensaver (and Leopard!)

By: Mike Morales

Mike Morales — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:11:37 +0000

Greg, thanks for this info. I was wondering how one would enforce the screensaver lock on systems. It seems crazy that Apple doesn’t provide an easier way to implement this, considering most corporate environs would want this done.

@Sean- As for getting the screensaver to always kick in at a specified time, a simple launch agent pointed to a script can be configured to do this, provided your systems are on 10.5. I had a terrible time getting the same configuration to work correctly on 10.4 though. Tiger’s launchd system was pushed out a bit incomplete and buggy.
I eventually got this to work using the sleepwatcher daemon from Bernhard Baehr on our 10.4 Macs. Its not as clean since the .sleep file must live in each user’s home folder, but most users are unaware of it, so have no way of disabling it.

By: Michael Mock

Michael Mock — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:07:06 +0000

I was trying to find out where to get more information on keywords to use to define the preferences I want. For example. I do not want my students to be able to see the connected servers on the sidebar of the finder. Not sure what string to enter to control that. Any resources?

By: GregN

GregN — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:33:15 +0000

How are you trying to manage idleTime? There’s a known/observed bug/shortcoming/mal-feature where you cannot manage this Always. The best you can do is manage it Often. This means the user can change it, but on log out/log in, it will be reset back to your default.

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:51:56 +0000

This is all well and good, and a huge help. But how do I enforce the timing of the screensaver? I set the idleTime key but it just won’t seem to take. Any suggestions?

By: AF

AF — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:37:13 +0000

I am upgrading to 10.5.6 so we’ll see if that makes a difference. Thanks for your help.

By: GregN

GregN — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:09:19 +0000

“I didn’t realize it was in the home folder”

The notation “~/some/path” means the some/path in the current user’s home folder, wherever that might reside.

No ideas on the error. I know Apple claims they’ve fixed this issue in recent releases of 10.5 (10.5.5 or later), so perhaps this workaround is no longer needed, and trying to do it trigger the error…

By: AF

AF — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:53:07 +0000

I’ve managed to locate the file, I didn’t realize it was in the home folder…But now when I go to import I get an error:

Debug Message
Unexpected Error. File:/SourceCache/WorkgroupManager/Preferences/WorkGroupManagerPreferences-360/LowLevelEditor/PrefDetailsPi.MM Line:1463

Any ideas?

By: GregN

GregN — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:34:36 +0000

“I’ve noticed that in Leopard 10.5 that the file: ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver..plist does not exist in the location listed here. How do I make these changes in Server 10.5?”

Sure it does. But first you have to make changes to the ScreenSaver settings – if you’re using the defaults, there won’t be any file there.

And remember you can (and probably should) run Workgroup Manager on a client machine that’s connected to the directory – you don’t have to run it on the server itself.

By: AF

AF — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:27:31 +0000

I’ve noticed that in Leopard 10.5 that the file: ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver..plist does not exist in the location listed here. How do I make these changes in Server 10.5?

By: Volkan

Volkan — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:31:04 +0000

“/System/Library/CoreServices/ManagedClient.app, you import a bunch of useful preference manifests.”

How can we delete thosepreferences we do not want? The “-” button is inactive for those preferences …

Thank you …