MacOS – Disable Screen sharing via the command line in mountain lion

There are several problems with the script you posted.

Don't remove /Users/Shared - iTunes needs it and will fail on certain store and sharing operations.

dscl on Lion will still whine if you start it (it's looking for the missing plist) - even if you launch /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist as Ingmar Hupp has suggested.

I've never been one to worry about cleaning up the groups since I'm deleting user 501. The system will just add UID 501 back into the Admin and Staff groups the next time the Setup Assistant boots, so I do the following: (assume the short name of the user 501 is test)

1. ⌘+S
2. /sbin/mount -uw /
3. cd /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/
4. rm test.plist
5. rm -rf /Users/test
6. rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
7. halt

I do use the official Users & Groups Preference Pane to delete all users except 501 and/or create the test user as 501 as needed since launchd can have jobs stuck if the users you are clearing aren't trivial users set up for simple updates as your case allows.

I would avoid saving a WiFi password or setting up WiFi outside the user account or use ethernet for your updates if you want to be fastidious about leaving as little of your settings behind (especially if the SSID/name isn't generic like Apple Network or has WEP/WPA keys).

OK, I sussed it out. You can still do it, it's just that the way you do it is based on context rather than using the appropriate command.

Basically, to use the virtual display, you need multiple user accounts on the target machine, and you need an account to be already logged into the target machine such that you can login a 2nd time using the virtual display. Any account you wish to log into obviously needs the associated sharing rights enabled. Then follow the following logic:

• If no one is logged into the target machine, you will always get the Hardware display showing the normal login screen, when you login from that screen you continue to use the hardware display.
• If the user you try to login as is already logged in, then it will always switch to that user and continue to use the hardware display
• If you login with a user who is not already logged in at the hardware display but someone else is (this is the key, the Hardware display needs to be in use by someone else), you get the following message and the ability to use the virtual display.

If you want to use the virtual display for privacy reasons, you cannot simply switch to it like you could in 10.7, but you could simply leave the target machine with Guest logged in on the Hardware display to allow you to login as your primary user on the Virtual one.