Disable iTunes Update Check?

[Patrick Fergus]

Anyone found the right setting to disable iTunes’ “There is a later version of iTunes” update check? I feel it’s buried inside the base 64 encoded plists, but it seems near-impossible to find.

– Patrick

[Greg Neagle]

This is probably best done with MCX. The iTunes plists are weird – probably a hold-over from its Carbon heritage.

[Patrick Fergus]

Sure–I’ll put it into MCX on the Leopard OD server if it can be identified. I’d even be ok with putting a giant blob of iTunes prefs into MCX as long as I could vet that the settings that come along inside the giant base 64 blob aren’t going to harm anything.

– Patrick

[Greg Neagle]

MCX settings described here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2653

But after looking at this, I also verified this works:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes disableCheckForUpdates -bool YES

And interestingly, this turns off the check and disables the checkbox in the preferences dialog. Works on iTunes 8, at least…

[Patrick Fergus]

Wow–thanks.

Did you already know that was in Apple’s KBase? If not, what steps did you use to find it? I appreciate being taught how to fish…

– Patrick

[Greg Neagle]

I had a vague recollection of the article, so Googled for “Managed Client iTunes”…

[knowmad]

not exactly on-topic but I figured that you might be interested in this, found it a while ago (week? two weeks?) on macosxhints.com
[code]
#remove itunes store links (save bandwith)
defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool FALSE[/code]

useful in its own way…..

[xenedar]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: gneagle[/u][p]defaults write com.apple.iTunes disableCheckForUpdates -bool YES
[/QUOTE]

This doesn’t do what you think it will do. It stops iTunes from checking for newer versions of iPhone apps. In your Applications category in the iTunes Library, it will grey out your “Check for Updates” and “X Updates Available” label at the bottom.

I’ve yet to be convinced that it actually does prevent iTunes version checking.

(Note that the “disableMiniStore” key doesn’t work if the version is out-of-date, as regardless of the state of this key, the “MiniStore” bar will open offering the possibility of upgrading to version 8 to gain the Genius feature. So even if you do suppress the Check for Updates check, iTunes will still want to get you up to version 8.)

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