Suppressing the "What's New" dialog in Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac

Since our College is both Windows and Mac we install the Microsoft Remote Desktop tool for Mac onto all systems. Microsoft's latest edition is a welcomed change however one annoying thing happens with every update. Each user is prompted with a nice "What's New" dialog when they launch it. After doing some digging I found that this setting is actually stored in a "sandbox" container which means that each user has this setting. Essentially if you have a system with multiple users, each one of them would have to press "Don't Show this Again" to make it go away. Well I'm a big fan of automation so I developed a quick Bash Script that will place a shell script and a Launch Agent on the system that will change this setting so users do not see that popup each time it updates.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
#!/bin/bash
# Microsoft Remote Desktop What's New
# Dialog Box Supression Script
# Joshua D. Miller - [email protected]
# The Pennsylvania State University

# Make Blank Receipt to Prevent App Store Updates
/bin/mkdir /Applications/Microsoft\ Remote\ Desktop.app/Contents/_MASReceipt
/usr/bin/touch /Applications/Microsoft\ Remote\ Desktop.app/Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt
RDCDir='/Users/$USER/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.rdc.mac'
WorkDir='/Users/$USER/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.rdc.mac/Data/Library/Preferences'
BundledVersion=`/usr/bin/defaults read /Applications/Microsoft\ Remote\ Desktop.app/Contents/Info CFBundleShortVersionString`

# Create Scripts Directory if it does not exist
/bin/test -d /Library/Scripts/EDUC || /bin/mkdir /Library/Scripts/EDUC

# Create RDC Script
/bin/rm -f /Library/Scripts/EDUC/MSRDC.sh
/bin/echo '#!/bin/bash
/bin/test -d '$RDCDir' || mkdir -p '$RDCDir'
/usr/bin/defaults write '$WorkDir'/com.microsoft.rdc.mac show_whats_new_dialog -bool False
/usr/bin/defaults write '$WorkDir'/com.microsoft.rdc.mac stored_version_number -string '$BundledVersion'' > /Library/Scripts/EDUC/MSRDC.sh

# Create RDC LaunchDaemon
if [ ! -e /Library/LaunchAgents/edu.psu.educ.MSRDC.plist ]
then
	/bin/echo '<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC '-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN' 'http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd'>
<plist version='1.0'>
<dict>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>edu.psu.educ.MSRDC</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/bin/sh</string>
		<string>/Library/Scripts/EDUC/MSRDC.sh</string>
	</array>
	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
	<true/>
</dict>
</plist>
	' > /Library/LaunchAgents/edu.psu.educ.MSRDC.plist
else
	/bin/echo 'LaunchAgent exists.  Creation not needed.'
fi
exit 0

So to summarize we are creating a launch agent which will run each time a user logs in and a script that will modify the user's plist file for Microsoft Remote Desktop to suppress the "What's New" dialog box. Comments are always welcomed and if there is a better way to do this I am definitely open to it. I have also submitted a bug report to Apple about making these settings deployable via a Configuration Profile.

NOTE: If you are deploying this with Munki remember that you will need to change the < and > to < and > as you will have to escape XML.