Stop Mavericks from relaunching applications Mavericks keeps launching recent applications at startup although I always keep the checkbox that should control this feature unchecked. This is really annoying, because (a) startup takes much more time, (b) I want to decide which applications are to be started and which are not, and (c) there are some applications that would crash (Apple's own Logic, for instance).

If I knew where OS X kept information about recent applications, I could write a script that deletes that at login. Has anyone figured out where these things are put?

EDIT: I'm also interested in the location where Mavericks puts the screenshot from last session. As you might have noticed, the screenshot is always shown first when logging in, then the screen is refreshed with the actual window contents.
There are three official places I know of that unwanted items on startup are controlled:

1) Login preferences: if you want to delete an item, make sure you highlight it and then click "-" instead of just unchecking it. If it is unchecked, it will still start, it will just have a hidden windows.



2) "General" - make sure "Close windows when quitting an application" is checked. This shouldn't control which applications actually open, but I've seen some people confuse unwanted windows with unwanted apps.



3) The "Reopen programs when logging back in" dialog on logout – this should be unchecked.

In addition, there are some unofficial tricks you can try:

Disable ApplePersistence: 

defaults write -g ApplePersistence -bool no


Note that this will also disable Versions (autosave)

Set "System preference>General>Recent items" to NONE (default is 10)

ref:

The first three tips have worked for me; the last two are from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5538748?start=0&amp;tstart=0