I've found that this plist alone is not enough to disable Dashboard.
When you use the script:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES;
killall Dock
Dashboard still exists as a component of Dock.app, and a standalone app in
/Applications. It can still be invoked by hotkey, or by directly launching
either app.
The way I disable dashboard in Tiger is to run the following script:
#!/bin/sh
mkdir -p /Library/polo/disabled/Dock
cp -R /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/Wid*
/Library/polo/disabled/Dock/
rm -R /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/Wid*
cp -R /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/wid*
/Library/polo/disabled/Dock/
rm -R /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/wid*
cp -R /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/Dash*
/Library/polo/disabled/Dock/
rm -R /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/Dash*
cp -R /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/dash*
/Library/polo/disabled/Dock/
rm -R /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/dash*
cp -R /Library/Widgets /Library/polo/disabled/
rm -R /Library/Widgets
cp -R /Applications/Dashboard.app /Library/polo/disabled/
rm -R /Applications/Dashboard.app
chmod -R 700 /Library/polo/disabled
for i in $( ls /Users/ );
do
fn=$i
if test ${i:FIRST:1} != "." -a $i != "Shared"; then cp -R
/System/Library/User
Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
/Users/$i/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist; cp -R
/System/Library/User
Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist
/Users/$i/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist; chown -R $i
/Users/$i/Library/Preferences; fi
Done
# end script
The Dashboard hotkey must be turned off too. If you leave the Dashboard
hotkey active after removing/deleting Dashboard, the Dock will crash and
relaunch when you press the hotkey. It doesn't seem to have any ill effect
other than an annoying 'blinking' of the dock.
The 'for' statement at the end copies a hotkey plist from the user template
to all existing home folders. The script was written before I adopted
Casper and was a postflight script in a .pkg that put the plist into the
User Template. A .dmg package containing the plist and set to FUT and FEU
would accomplish the same thing, but you'll still need the rest of the
script to perform the Dashboard-ectomy.
