Is it possible to let a user see a map but make it so they can't click on the nodes within the map?

Can you make a copy of the map, and on that copy delete hyperlinks?  Give some users access to that copy of the map?

I could do that but, at least the way I'm thinking of, it would make the nodes statuses invalid / unkown....right?

Deletion of hyperlinks shouldn't be a problem.  (Unless map functionality has changed a lot since I last used it.)

No reason you couldn't make a copy of your map to test.

It works! Thanks!

Glad to hear it.  I haven't had maps in my installations for about four years, so I was thinking back to what I might do if I did--and hoping I was providing you accurate information.  (Since my in environment were already named geographically and my geographical custom properties were in place, and since I had too many stale items on my maps, and since we were already showing a map down if a single item was down...for all those reasons just 'forgot' to add maps back in and used groups.)

Additionally, did you only care that they can't "go" anywhere within the map? Or did you want to create a view limitation so they can't access the items that were on the map?

You might also view this video and get some good tips:

SolarWinds Lab

Wasn't really a factor.  It was mainly not worth the time to keep maps updated.  And an instance where senior leadership saw a region being up on a map when a switch was down.  I explained the slider that set the percent of nodes that had to be down.  They still wanted a map to show down for a single down node.  Due to naming conventions, our maps weren't important.  A node's name told you where it was.

I actually had to beg people to click on down items on maps.  I couldn't possibly show 1700 devices in a meaningful way.  Eventually I went to DirectLink accounts for datawalls, and those accounts were pretty neutered to prevent clicking around.

In an earlier job we did find maps to be quite useful for displaying server/ rack / elevation relationships.  Simple yet quite helpful for datacenter monitoring.  And with the right Visio or flow diagram as a background, it was a great way to show relationships.  At that time group functionality did not yet exist.