Is there a way to 'lock' all settings, preferences etc. ?

I am one of probably millions of people who take care of and maintain a computer for their aging parents. My problem is that Mom and Dad have a terrible time keeping from making unwanted changes to their system. I am referring to details such as window positions, toolbar selections and countless other settings in their browser, email client etc. They will accidentally change something and have no idea how they did it or how to change it back, or even recollection of exactly how things used to be.
Can anyone here advise me of a utility or application that can be used to effectively 'lock' everything so that they cannot possibly mess things up. I would hope it could cover the entire OS, not just specific apps such as 'Mail'. I also need this to work for OS X 10.3.9.
Even if things cannot be locked, is there some way that the computer could at least boot up in the exact same configuration every time it is booted? Is there some way to create and utilize a disk based 'sleep mode' file for this? I'm referring to a disk file that gets written before the Mac goes into a deep sleep mode before a forced sleep due to low battery power.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, not just by me and other 'children/caretakers' but I would bet by millions of geriatrics around the world! TIA

I have been doing some searching and experimenting and have just come up with two solutions.
One is to use the app called "Deep Freeze" for the Mac. It works back to Panther at least and that is what I need. It sees to it that upon re boot everything will be the same as it was when it was frozen. You can even have a special folder that you can put stuff in (new downloads or other documents you have created) and they will be readable and writable as normal.
The problem with the above app is that I could not find any way for it to keep new emails. It would re-Get them with every restart of the computer.
So I found an even simpler way that works very well for my situation. I use Get Info and check the "Lock" box for the following files in HomeFolder/Library/Preferences/
com.apple.desktop.plist
com.apple.finder.plist
com.apple.dock.plist
com.apple.mail.plist
com.apple.Safari.plist
com.apple.universalaccess.plist
Doing this makes it so that even if mom and dad screw with any prefs or window positions of Mail and Safari, or if they inadvertently drag and 'poof' icons out of the dock (they do this routinely with their shaky hands and mouse button trigger finger). At the next start of the application everything is back to the default (default by my design) position. And upon restarting the computer the dock has all its icon back in place. It is very simple and straight forward to do and it is obviously free. Just make yourself a folder with an alias of every plist file that you 'lock' and you can very easily find them and unlock them if you need to make a change.
If you want any particular folder to open when the computer is booted or if you want any particualr apps to be open at boot time just put them in System Prefs/Accounts/Login Items.
All the above works in 10.4.10. I hope it will work in 10.3.9.
The only thing I have not yet discovered how to do is how to make a folder window be in a specific place and have a specific size when it opens at boot time. It needs to be this way regardless of how it might have been left at Shut Down time. Any help on what needs to be locked etc. to accomplish that would be greatly appreciated. TIA

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Cobb61 wrote:
I backed up my iphone and it backed up to two years ago. Is there a way to recover all the photos, etc. that I lost?
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This is my first go at this so be kind,
My question concerns launchpad. Coming from Snow Leopard I had been using spaces. I like to keep certain bundles of programs on separate desktops, for example all word processing related tasks in one place. I have set up the equivalent on Yosemite.
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