MacOS – Saved preferences resetting on restart

macospreferences

I just bought a MacBook Pro with OS X Lion.

I am having a problem with all my saved preferences: for example, in my Finder "General Preferences", the new finder window shows setting keeps resetting each time I turn on my Mac.

I am having the exact same problem with the general system preferences regarding the restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps setting; I disabled it but when I restart my laptop, Lion keeps re-opening the programs that were opened in the previous session.

I am a first time Mac user and I am a bit lost with this problem 🙂

Best Answer

I think the confusion may be in this dialog:

restart dialog

Unchecking it works for the current restart but the next time it comes up its checked. It has a default state which doesn't seem to have a control in system preferences and may be getting mixed up with this related but different control:

system prefs pane

No doubt others here will know more about this than I do but I understand how a new user might be confused.