Suppressing Microsoft AutoUpdate’s Required Data Notice screen

Suppressing Microsoft AutoUpdate’s Required Data Notice screen

As part of the latest update to Microsoft AutoUpdate app, a new screen has appeared which requires the logged-in user to click on it.

This screen is to notify users that Microsoft AutoUpdate collects diagnostic data for Microsoft and provides basic information on how to opt-out of the data collection. The overall point of the screen is to help Microsoft comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and similar laws.

While this screen is fairly straightforward for an individual to deal with on their own Mac, it may cause challenges for computer labs because those facilities may remove and repopulate user home folders on each login. Since the setting which records that a user has seen the notification is stored in the user’s home folder, in the ~/Library/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist file, this may result in the lab’s users seeing this notification multiple times unnecessarily. To address this, Microsoft has made suppressing this screen possible by adding the following key and value to the com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist file

• Key: AcknowledgedDataCollectionPolicy
• Value: RequiredDataOnly

This setting can be applied with a script or with a configuration profile. For more details, please see below the jump.

I’ve written a script and configuration profile to apply this setting. Either will work, but my personal preference would be to use the profile.

Script:

This script is also available on GitHub via the link below:

https://github.com/rtrouton/rtrouton_scripts/tree/master/rtrouton_scripts/disable_mau_required_data_notice_screen

	#!/bin/bash
	# This script is designed to suppress the Microsoft AutoUpdate Required Data Notice screen
	# The script runs the following actions:
	#
	# 1. Identifies all users on the Mac with a UID greater than 500
	# 2. Identifies the home folder location of all users identified
	# in the previous step.
	# 3. Sets the com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist file with the following
	# key and value. This will suppress Microsoft AutoUpdate's
	# Required Data Notice screen and stop it from appearing.
	#
	# Key: AcknowledgedDataCollectionPolicy
	# Value: RequiredDataOnly
	# Identify all users on the Mac with a UID greater than 500
	allLocalUsers=$(/usr/bin/dscl . -list /Users UniqueID | awk '$2>500 {print $1}')
	for userName in ${allLocalUsers}; do
	# Identify the home folder location of all users with a UID greater than 500.
	userHome=$(/usr/bin/dscl . -read "/Users/$userName" NFSHomeDirectory 2>/dev/null | /usr/bin/sed 's/^[^\/]*//g')
	# Verify that home folder actually exists.
	if [[ -d "$userHome" ]]; then
	# If the home folder exists, sets the com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist file with the needed key and value.
	/usr/bin/defaults write "${userHome}/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist" AcknowledgedDataCollectionPolicy RequiredDataOnly
	# This script is designed to be run with root privileges, so the ownership of the com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist file
	# and the enclosing directories are re-set to that of the account which owns the home folder.
	/usr/sbin/chown "$userName" "${userHome}/Library/"
	/usr/sbin/chown "$userName" "${userHome}/Library/Preferences"
	/usr/sbin/chown "$userName" "${userHome}/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist"
	fi
	done

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disable_mau_required_data_notice_screen.sh
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Profile:

This profile is also available on GitHub via the link below:

https://github.com/rtrouton/profiles/tree/master/DisableMAURequiredDataNotice

	<?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"&gt;
	<plist version="1.0">
	<dict>
	<key>PayloadContent</key>
	<array>
	<dict>
	<key>AcknowledgedDataCollectionPolicy</key>
	<string>RequiredDataOnly</string>
	<key>PayloadDescription</key>
	<string>Configures Microsoft AutoUpdate settings</string>
	<key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
	<string>Microsoft AutoUpdate</string>
	<key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
	<string>com.company.3D526594-EF29-400F-8459-37A72D044BD9.com.microsoft.autoupdate2.229DC997-3B88-4E97-8FD6-F4A033A2A779</string>
	<key>PayloadOrganization</key>
	<string></string>
	<key>PayloadType</key>
	<string>com.microsoft.autoupdate2</string>
	<key>PayloadUUID</key>
	<string>229DC997-3B88-4E97-8FD6-F4A033A2A779</string>
	<key>PayloadVersion</key>
	<integer>1</integer>
	</dict>
	</array>
	<key>PayloadDescription</key>
	<string>Suppress Microsoft AutoUpdate's Required Data Notice screen</string>
	<key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
	<string>Disable MAU Required Data Notice</string>
	<key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
	<string>com.company.3D526594-EF29-400F-8459-37A72D044BD9</string>
	<key>PayloadOrganization</key>
	<string>Company Name</string>
	<key>PayloadScope</key>
	<string>System</string>
	<key>PayloadType</key>
	<string>Configuration</string>
	<key>PayloadUUID</key>
	<string>3D526594-EF29-400F-8459-37A72D044BD9</string>
	<key>PayloadVersion</key>
	<integer>1</integer>
	</dict>
	</plist>

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DisableMAURequiredDataNotice.mobileconfig
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