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Click the Add Schema button and paste the copied text of the manifest from GitHub in the Custom Schema field.

Scroll down the list of payloads to Application & Custom Settings and click External Applications.

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Provide a name such as “Disable Software Update pane”.In Jamf Pro, choose Computers > Configuration Profiles and click New to create a new profile.Copy the macOS Disabled System Preference Panes.json manifest from GitHub.To deploy this setting by itself, use Jamf Pro’s custom manifest feature. The computer Restrictions configuration profile hasn’t been modernized yet, which means it may deploy more settings than you want. When saving, choose the option to deploy to all computers. If you’re already deploying a configuration profile with a Restrictions payload, you can edit that profile and choose Preferences > Disable Selected Items > Software Update. We’ll have to explicitly deny access to the Software Update pane. This profile by itself is not enough to prevent end users from manually opening the Software Update pane in System Preferences and checking for updates. In macOS Catalina 10.15, it looked something like this: Ignore is no longer an optionįirst, let’s talk about the -ignore option as part of the softwareupdate command, which we’ve used in the past for hiding macOS updates. Depending on your organization, this may be enough. This does absolutely nothing to prevent someone from doing it anyway, but it asserts authority without removing any privileges. Be sure to specify IT’s stance for non-compliance.

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The easiest method for preventing unwanted installations is to disclose your organization’s policy to end users that states “Do not install major macOS upgrades unless authorized by Information Technology”. That usually means we need to be taking more than just one step.

What steps can we take to prevent our end users from installing a new major macOS version? Keep in mind, end users can acquire the installer and run it in multiple ways. Not every administrator is ready to support Monterey, but sometimes our end users get ahead of us and install it themselves.

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Identifying Macs eligible to erase and install or upgrade.Let’s spend some time discussing newer ways to manage Monterey installations including:

Apple started introducing these tools in its macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 installer, and the process has continued to evolve and improve well into Monterey.Ī lot has changed the past year. Starting overĮrasing and reinstalling a clean macOS is now a common workflow for reprovisioning Macs for different users, different purposes or simply starting over. Let’s continue with Apple’s latest upgrade Monterey. We’ve updated this blog post the past few years for each new upgrade. But they need careful planning and testing before deploying organization wide. Major macOS upgrades are important because every new upgrade brings not only new features but improved security and end user privacy. Mac's at double the footprint compared to 10 years ago are a bigger target today for spyware and ransomware.

And much of the aggressiveness for its annual updates comes from Apple’s increased focus on both privacy and security as its footprint in the world grows more substantial.

And while installation time has remained relatively consistent at anywhere from 20 to 50 minutes, the upgrade process is still lengthy.

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Today, it takes 3x longer to download an installer and 3x more space to store on Mac endpoints plus 3x more working disk space to run. As the size of the macOS installer grows, the complexity of deploying it grows exponentially.

No administrator should be surprised or unprepared for a new version of macOS each year. It’s an established pattern that’s been in place for a decade.

Apple is aggressively updating its Mac operating system.

What does this teach us as administrators? However, threats from for-profit malware hidden in apps or tainted downloads quadrupled in 2019 according to a USA Today report. Traditional malware such as viruses and worms are still minimal to non-existent.

Today’s macOS is under increased threat from malware and bad actors.

Its most recent macOS Monterey 12.0.1 installer weighs in at about 12 GB - nearly triple in size. The OS X Lion 10.7 installer was about 4.72 GB.

The size of its Mac operating system installers has grown considerably over those 10 years too.

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It released Mac OS X Lion (10.7) in 2011 and every year since has released a new major version. Apple has been on a 1-year major release cycle for its Mac operating system for the past 10 years.

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