[CraigS]

I recently gave my iMac (running os9) to my somewhat curious father, can someone recommend a way to protect the system folder - thus saving me nightly visits to reinstall significant portions of the os. Las night he somehow trashed open transport (which also kills sherlock-- a *wonderful* catch 22

any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks

There is a an option to lock the System Folder on the General Controls control panel.

[Cipher13]

Though the option to lock the System Folder is in there, on quite a few of the newer Macs it is disabled for some reason. I've seen it disabled on mny iMac rev D's, and on my new G4. All were running OS 9. If anyone knows how to enable the lock option...

Cipher13

[wlonh]

it is disbled due to Keychain and Multi users etc, i do believe

[Cipher13]

I have multi-users off and have tried the General controls with Keychain locked and unlocked, and there's no change - grayed out still... Something with OS 9 obviously - I have not seen a single Mac with OS 9 that can lock the sys or app folder.
This includes both the new Macs and Macs back to the 5500...

Cipher13

[wlonh]

that is just exactly what i meant, the new feature(s) in MacOS 9 that i mentioned_preclude_the folder protection in General Controls... it is over-ridden and not available

or that is what i read somewhere i think

Check out this Apple TIL article:
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n25132

[wlonh]

thanks Art D, that removes all ambiguity

[Cipher13]

Oh, ok.
I read what you wrote wrong :-)

Cipher13

[P]

The point everyone seems to be trying to make is that you should use the Multiple Users feature to lock down the OS from your father. You do this by opening the Multiple Users control panel, enabling multiple users at the bottom of the window and set up a new account. Name it with your fathers name and set it to "Limited". Now you can set exactly what he can do. Don't forget to set the Owner password so you can change the settings when necessary.

[Misha]

I still think Apple should enable this option again... it's a quick-'n'-easy way to protect the System Folder without needing to set up Multiple Users.