How To Enable And Disable Startup Applications in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

Many newly installed and pre-installed applications start up with the Ubuntu operating system. This contributes to the amount  of time required for the operating system to fully load and also results in the annoyance of having to manually close programs when the system starts. For example, a program may register itself to start at system start-up and an app-indicator menu applet may initiate each time the OS boots.

It can be tedious to locate the various options associated with each app to make sure that it does not start when the system boots. Furthermore, some programs run in the background and slow down the operating system. In this post we will show you how to restrict programs from automatically stating in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin. By default, Start-up Applications do not show up in the Preferences dialog box in Ubuntu 12.04 . In order to show these applications, enter the following command in the Terminal.

sudo sed -i ‘s/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g’ /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop

Once done, all startup programs will show up in the Start Applications window. You can simply uncheck the programs that you wish to disable and check (Tick) the ones that you want to auto-start at system startup. You can also add, edit and remove individual applications in the list from the respective options.

Start up Applications

Note: When disabling programs make sure that you do not disable a vital application as that may lead to system issues and disruption of important operating system tasks.