[indigoimac]

Here's what I'm looking to do and I need a response by tomorrow morning!
I need to be able to lock down a bunch of G5 towers which are running x.3. By lock down I mean that a user will not be able to change the desktop, clock, dock icons, etc. basically they can only access a network drive and 1 folder on the local machine and better yet is it possible for this folder to clean it self out say every week?
Thanks! -indigo

[CatOne]

Best way to do it is to use OS X Server and managed preferences.

[indigoimac]

Yes I would agree w/ you, but to the best of my knowledge they are not on a server and this is unfortunately out of my control!

[placebo1969]

How about creating an account with the Simple Finder?

[C.J. Moof]

Not an endorsement- I've never touched it. Just a product suggestion:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/24667

For a folder to clean itself out, that's a job for crontab and rm -rf....

[TimmyDee51]

Create two accounts -- 1 administrator and 1 restricted user. Set up the restricted users preferences (Dock items, Desktop items, other settings, etc.) and then log into the admin account.

Create a folder in the admin's home folder called "Applications (Restricted)" or something like that and change it's permissions to allow the admin to read and write but deny any access to any other users. Take any applications you don't want the user to have access to (including the System Prefs) and throw them in that folder.

Set the restricted user's limits in System Prefs (can't remove items from Dock, etc.). Typically, I would create a downloads folder on the Desktop and then lock the user out from writing to the Desktop (be sure to have set your Safari prefs to download to that folder, though, or you will get errors). I would also set the restricted user's home folder to read only but leave the other folders editable.

As C. J. Moof said, use cron to take care of cleaning the folders out. PM me if you have any questions (this sort of thing was my job last year).

[Randman]

Timmy has the right idea. Very easy to do in Preferences > Accounts.