HOW TO
The method described in this document restricts access to the normal.mxt and normal.gxt files that contain customizations for ArcMap and ArcCatalog. These files are created from scratch in a user's Winnt\Profiles\<username>\Application Data\ESRI folder.There is no way to control the contents of the Normal.* files, if they are not preexisting. However; however, if the files exist, their permissions can be modified to prevent other users from changing customizations.
Code:
c:\Winnt\Profiles\<username>\Application Data\ESRI\ArcMap\templates\Normal.mxt
Code:
:\Winnt\Profiles\<username>\Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog\Normal.gxt
Code:
LockCustomization "<password>"
Code:
c:\Winnt\Profiles\<username>\Application Data\ESRI\ArcMap\templates\Normal.mxt
Code:
c:\Winnt\Profiles\<username>\Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog\Normal.gxt
Code:
c:\Winnt\Profiles\<username>\Application Data\ESRI\ArcMap\templates
Code:
c:\Winnt\Profiles\<username>\Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog
Note:
Anyone with administrative privileges will be able to delete these modified files. If they do, then the next time they start ArcMap or ArcCatalog, new versions of these files will be created and they won't lock customization.
It may be necessary to have one account that owns and has full control of these files, that way, other administrators will not have access to the files.
Note:
This methodology has not been tested or certified by the normal ESRI development procedures, so there may be unknown problems as a result of limiting permissions on these files. Users who choose to implement this locking methodology should experiment with it in a test environment before trying to implement it in any production environment.
Article ID:000002688
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