Weird (?) Question About How Apple handles Software Update Checks...

[mbezzo]

Hi,
Okay, so I'm struggling to find an answer to this, so I thought I'd ask here:

If a user disables all the checkboxes (so the computer is not checking for updates at all) in the App Store pref pane, does the computer, behind the scenes, still check on its own and keep the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist key "LastUpdatesAvailable" updated? Can I actually trust this to be accurate even if users turn stuff off even though they shouldn't be? (and yes, I realize this can be forced with config profiles... but that's not the point of this question. :) )

Thanks!
Matt

[mbezzo]

FWIW, Apple says that key is not updated if "Automatically check for updates" is not checked in System Preferences > App Store.