iTunes preference management
Workgroup Manager/MCX supports managing some iTunes preferences if you use the Preference Details and add the Managed Client preference managements.
It turns out there are a few more things you can manage if you look here.
These additional items include:
- disableCheckForUpdates
- disableAutomaticDeviceSync
- disableGetAlbumArtwork
- disablePlugins
and more. These also seem to work as regular default keys. For example:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes disableCheckForUpdates -bool YES
turns off and disables automatic checking for updates. You might want to do that if you manage installation of iTunes updates yourself.
November 21, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I found one small side effect to running:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes disableCheckForUpdates -bool YES
After I did this, the Update and Restore buttons in the iPhone preferences in iTunes were grayed out. Pretty strange that this plist file would control that, but it does. After I ran this:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes disableCheckForUpdates -bool NO
I restarted iTunes, and those buttons were available again. Very odd that this flag would prevent you from restoring your iPhone?
May 8, 2009 at 11:53 am
@ Jeff – yes, since this key/value pair disables checking for updates, this affects iPhones–and iPhone Restore functions, consequently.
The Restore function is likely closely tied to checking for updates.
I can confirm the same observations you’ve made, and that changing the end of defaults command to -bool NO permits Check for Updates and Restore functions on iPhone.
In each case the preference does not take effect until relaunching.
June 18, 2009 at 10:30 pm
This also affects iPhone app update checking, as well as iTunes update checking and iPhone update/restoring. Your list of iPhone apps will still be available, but the “Check for Updates” and “X Updates Available” will be greyed out.