Safari 6 used to open new windows by default to the Homepage, this behaviour in Safari 7 has been changed to show the “Top Sites” window as shown above.

The Keys

Looking at Safari 6’s preferences against Safari 7 you can see this change at the “New Windows Open With:” setting, also to manage this you should also enforce the above setting “Safari Opens With:” Both are shown in the image below:

Safari Opens With

To manage the setting “Safari Opens With:” via MCX, the settings are below:

Display Name: AlwaysRestoreSessionAtLaunch
Application Domain: com.apple.Safari
Key Name: AlwaysRestoreSessionAtLaunch
Key Type: boolean
Key Value: false

Via bash that will look like:

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari AlwaysRestoreSessionAtLaunch -bool false

New Windows Open With

Next to manage the “New Windows Open With:” setting.

Via MCX:

Display Name: NewWindowBehavior
Application Domain: com.apple.Safari
Key Name: NewWindowBehavior
Key Type: integer
Key Value: 0

Via bash:

[github file = “/macmule/dumpinggound/blob/master/contents.sh” start_line = “137” end_line = “138”]

HomePage

Via MCX:

Display Name: HomePage
Application Domain: com.apple.Safari
Key Name: HomePage
Key Type: string
Key Value: https://macmule.com

Via bash:

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari NewWindowBehavior -integer 0

(Obviously, replace https://macmule.com with the correct homepage for your org).

Finito

Once all have been deployed, your Safari 7 should launch to the Homepage as per Safari 6.