I have Apple Remote Desktop Admin 3.7 (370A61) installed and I want to backup its plist file. It has always been in ~/Library/Preferences but in 3.7 they appear to have moved the file and I can't find where it is. Could somebody point me to the location of this file please?
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Location of Apple Remote Desktop plist file?
- Thread starter graham1971
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I'm still not finding the .plist file. I looked through the folders and even found a plist shortcut, but doesn't appear to be the one that ARD writes to when you change something. I used to have the .plist synced through dropbox so that no matter what machine I'm on, all my changes in the ARD list are reflected to my other machines. I have since lost this functionality since the update to 3.7. None of my changes appear to be saving even on the same machine.
Thanks.
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.RemoteDesktop/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.RemoteDesktop.plist
I did look there and there isn't a file on my comp. I believe ARD somehow is recording the location of that file somewhere in the app now or something. Here is my situation:
Prior to the 3.7 update, I had the .plist file on my dropbox with a symbolic link in ~/Library/Preferences pointed to the file in my dropbox. I did this on my other machines as well so that all my machines shared the same plist so that any changes I made on one machine were reflected on the others. This method doesn't appear to work anymore with 3.7. Here's the intersting part; if I remove the file from my dropbox, then ARD acts like it has a new plist and starts fresh, HOWEVER the changes are not saved. If I quit ARD and reopen it, it acts like a new install again. It also doesn't create a new plist file in my dropbox or anywhere that I can find. I have tried just placing the plist file in the path you said and launching ARD but to no avail. Somewhere it is still looking at my dropbox for the file and I can't figure out where it's reading this from.
Hopefully that made sense.
Prior to the 3.7 update, I had the .plist file on my dropbox with a symbolic link in ~/Library/Preferences pointed to the file in my dropbox. I did this on my other machines as well so that all my machines shared the same plist so that any changes I made on one machine were reflected on the others. This method doesn't appear to work anymore with 3.7. Here's the intersting part; if I remove the file from my dropbox, then ARD acts like it has a new plist and starts fresh, HOWEVER the changes are not saved. If I quit ARD and reopen it, it acts like a new install again. It also doesn't create a new plist file in my dropbox or anywhere that I can find. I have tried just placing the plist file in the path you said and launching ARD but to no avail. Somewhere it is still looking at my dropbox for the file and I can't figure out where it's reading this from.
Hopefully that made sense.
Fixed...
So I believe the problem is fixed, however I'm not 100% sure what fixed it. Here's what I did:
I deleted the plist file on my dropbox, I rebooted my computer and booted off the recovery partition. I reset my ACLs on my account and also ran a permission repair in disk utility. After that, rebooted back off the main partition and launched ARD. The first time it just opened like normal. I quit it and reopened it. This time, it displayed the license agreement as if it has never been configured. After clicking next, it asked for the ARD password. Entered that and clicked next to a few more setup questions and everything was back. Even my list and all settings. I was then able to make changes and they stuck. I also noticed I did have an updated plist file in the new location. So not sure if it was the ACL reset or the permission repair, but things appear to be back to normal now. Haven't tried re-creating the dropbox sync yet with the new location of the plist. I'll try that next.
So I believe the problem is fixed, however I'm not 100% sure what fixed it. Here's what I did:
I deleted the plist file on my dropbox, I rebooted my computer and booted off the recovery partition. I reset my ACLs on my account and also ran a permission repair in disk utility. After that, rebooted back off the main partition and launched ARD. The first time it just opened like normal. I quit it and reopened it. This time, it displayed the license agreement as if it has never been configured. After clicking next, it asked for the ARD password. Entered that and clicked next to a few more setup questions and everything was back. Even my list and all settings. I was then able to make changes and they stuck. I also noticed I did have an updated plist file in the new location. So not sure if it was the ACL reset or the permission repair, but things appear to be back to normal now. Haven't tried re-creating the dropbox sync yet with the new location of the plist. I'll try that next.
I think I found another solution to the 3.7 problem. Just delete (or rename) the com.apple.RemoteDesktop.plist in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.RemoteDesktop/Data/Library/Preferences and ARD works just like before. It seems that if the plist-file at the new location does not exist, ARD uses the files at the old locations. At least it did so for me.
For anyone looking for more current info, I found the files needed at:
~/Library/Containers/Remote Desktop/
~/Library/Containers/Remote Desktop/