How do I stop finder from opening at start up?

Out of curiosity: why is it that you have no applications in your Applications folder? Instead, I see Mac OS in the Applications folder and it seems to contain what your System folder should have. Here is a screenshot of my Applications folder:

It appears you changed the file hierarchy of the OS which is not really recommended.

Your problem, hardware or software, is not the same as that of the original poster of this older thread, and it can be very confusing for everybody if we try to answer more than one question in each thread, which can also result in you applying the wrong advice to your particular problem.

In order for us to give your problem our proper attention to try to solve it, would you kindly start your own thread, describing the trouble you are having in the fullest detail, including completing your details to show what Mac or iDevice you are using, what operating system, and what version of the application in question. Please remember to post in the forum relevant to your hardware or version of OS X. A full list of all the support forums is here:

http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

Mac OS will always reopen any Finder window that was left open on shutdown. It was like this long before Lion and the Resume feature.

Make sure all Finder windows are closed before you shutdown/restart.

Try pasting this command into Terminal (be careful not to select any extra space either at the beginning or end of the command):

mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist ~/Desktop

Press 'Return', then restart the computer.

If this works, you can delete the file that appears on the Desktop. Notice that you may need to reset some of your Finder preferences.

If it doesn't work, do not delete the file that appears on the Desktop. Instead, return the file to where it came from and restore all your Finder prefs by pasting this command into Terminal:

mv ~/Desktop/com.apple.finder.plist ~/Library/Preferences

Then press 'Return' and restart the computer.

OK, you should have more luck with this one:

mv ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.finder.savedState ~/Desktop

Press 'Return'. Then restart the computer.

NB: ensure there's no Finder windows open again before you restart!

Message was edited by: softwater

No joy for me. I found my lappy doesnt go on standby when plugged in either contrary to energy saver settings.

Never been an issue before. How do you rollback the update.

I installed 10.7.3 update then I found the manual pack update in the news and installed. What a balls up!

The finder is alway running and cannot be shut down, is this correct?

Correct. Your computer needs to have a means to start up. Finder is the designated way on Mac OS. Finder will be shut down as you shut down the computer.

Let me just get this right:

1. You ran this command in Terminal and pressed return

mv ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.finder.savedState ~/Desktop

2. Closed all Finder windows

3. Restarted the computer

and then a Finder window was already automatically opened on restart? That doesn't sound possible!

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Can you try this, without restarting the computer:

1. Close all Finder windows.

2. In terminal, paste or type this (*note: if you type it, make sure 'Finder' is capitalized, i.e, not 'finder')

killall Finder

Then press 'Return'.

Does the problem window re-open on the desktop or not?

Message was edited by: softwater

From this post:

Before I restarted the finder was closed but still had a dot in the dock. The finder is alway running and cannot be shut down, is this correct?

I'm not sure at all if OP is still talking about an actual open window or just the fact the there is the triangle under the Finder icon in the dock........

I vaguely remember reading through a post that implicated Steam in this. It is only because I see that it is Steam in your screenshot that I remembered seeing it. I don't know if there is an update or workaround to stop it.

Macjack101 wrote:

I have done the steps you have suggested. Can't figure this out I never had this problem with snow leopard.

Yes, but you didn't say what happened after doing 'killall Finder'.

That test was supposed to tell us whether the problem is with Finder, or something launching Finder.

If after doing 'killall Finder' the window doesn't appear (as I suspect), then the problem is that something is causing Finder to run and open that window on boot up.

I think Barney's already half onto it with his suggestion about Steam, but what you do is remove everything from here

 > System Preferences... | Login Items

Then restart. Problem solved? Then add them all back in one at a time, restarting after each addition, till you find the culprit.

Given Barney's tip, you might start by just removing 'Steam' first, as that appears to be a known problem-causer.

Secondly, you should take note of what Babowa says above. Don't mess with the file hierarchy, especially not in Lion, which is far more touchy about things being where Apple says they should be than earlier iterations of OS X.

Glad to hear it! FWIW, if you want to add folders, do it within your Home Folder; i.e. the Documents folder would be a good one; that is where I have added several folders with sub folders to have all my files/documents in one place. Also makes it easy to back up/drag 'n drop to an external. Do not change any System supplied folders or their locations.

Best way to solve this problem without re-installing the Operating System 🙂

Just do the task in given sequence:

Open Application> Utilities> Disk Utility> Select Macintosh HD> First Aid> Verify Disk Permissions> (when done) Repair Disk Permissions

Restart your system

Problem SOLVED 🙂

The really simple solution to this is to remove the Mac OS X (Finder Application) entry in the Login Items.

System Preferences / System / Users and Groups / Select User / Login Items / [Click the lock to unlock if necessary] Select the offending Item and hit the minus sign.

I felt like a real idiot when I finally worked this out after reading this whole discussion and actually going to the Login Items and ignoring all the items that didn't have an X next to them (This just means hide after login) if the items in the list it will start up.

So it seems that some part of the upgrade to Lion managed to add this Finder entry to the start up items just remove it.