My first suggestion: don't do it via the User Template. You only get one chance to apply settings from the User Template, and that's on creation of the account. It won't work for network accounts, either, or anything that doesn't use the User Template as its basis. It also won't allow you to make changes to existing accounts, so you'll still need another mechanism in place in order to push out changes later. Rather than having two mechanisms to make changes to users, it's better to have one that works for both. It's less fragile and you end up having to do less work in the end.
Second suggestion: A lot of what you want to do can be done via MCX / Profiles. For example:
- show hard disks and connected servers on the desktop
Check out my Finder profile here that does that: https://github.com/nmcspadden/Profiles/blob/master/Finder.mobileconfig
- set the desktop background
Unfortunately this can no longer be profiled, but there are other instructions for how to do this:
http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/mavericks-desktop-background-picture-settings-moved-from-librarypreferencescom-apple-desktop-plist/
The short version is that you need to have a script that runs at login for the users to enforce the background being set. This can be done with a LaunchAgent, or by using something like outset https://github.com/chilcote/outset.
- set the default screen saver
Although I don't manage it, I believe it's set in com.apple.screensaver:
https://github.com/nmcspadden/Profiles/blob/master/ScreenSaverPasswordOff.mobileconfig
- have three servers as favourites (Canadian spelling there)
That's managed in com.apple.sidebarlists, I believe. I don't currently have a profile that manages it, but it's relatively easy to make one to add favorites.
- have several bookmarks in Safari, Chrome and Firefox
This is unfortunately the hard one, because there are three separate mechanisms you need to manage Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. Safari is easiest:
https://github.com/nmcspadden/Profiles/blob/master/Safari.mobileconfig
Chrome can be *mostly* managed by profile:
https://github.com/nmcspadden/Profiles/blob/master/Chrome.mobileconfig
There's a few extra steps when it comes to skipping the first run UI and such, but I don't think there's any blog posts about the whole process. That may be something I have to write up.
Firefox is done via the CCK2:
http://mike.kaply.com/2014/03/03/new-features-for-cck2/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cck2wizard/
I don't have Office 2011 so I can't help with that specifically.
My overall suggestion is to use the Apple-approved and recommended methods for managing this information, which is basically through MCX/Profiles. Creating profiles is relatively easy, with Casper, with Profile Manager, or other tools like mcxToProfile. "defaults write" is essentially a way to change a preference setting, and a profile is essentially a way to enforce that preference setting.
