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Lock the Dock in Macintosh OS X

Question: I have a computer lab of 25 Macs running OSX and would like to know how to lock the dock to prevent students from adding and removing necessary icons.

The IT Guy says:
The answer depends upon how you have your computers and student users set up to log in, and if you have an OS X server. If you run a computer with OS 10.2 Server on your network, you can use the Workgroup manager to control what icons are always on the dock when users log in. They can still add their own icons, but they would always get the default icons in their dock upon login. More info about this is on apple.com. Second option is to change the account options for the student account, on each individual lab or classroom computer. Do this in OS 10.2 by opening System Preferences, clicking Accounts, clicking on the account used by students, and clicking Capabilities. Deselect the option "User can remove items from the Dock." This is the same step you could do for all users with the Workgroup manager if you have an OS X server, but if you don't, it is still possible to have the same functionality. Third option is to run third party lockdown software. Unfortunately the popular Foolproof security software has not yet ported to OS X, and I have not read of a target release date or heard of other lockdown software for OS X that provides similar functionality. My recommendation: If you don't already, run a copy of OS 10.2 Server and Use the workgroup manager. Combined with Apple Remote Desktop, this makes a superb combination for both managing lessons in the lab as well as doing remote software installations, troubleshooting, etc.

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