xubuntu: Can Thunar NOT start background stuff?

[Tommy Trussell]

I finally upgraded from Breezy to Dapper about a week ago, and my old
PowerBook G3 (1998 Wallstreet II/PDQ) is crackin' along with the fine
new-ish software. HOWEVER, there are some differences I have been
wondering about.

The default file manager for xfce seems to be Thunar. I'm not sure
what it was before-- there was xffm which was OK but there was another
one that I used more and now I'll have to dig through my backups
because I cannot remember what it was called...

ANYWAY... the reason I don't use GNOME on this system is because
Nautilus starts up several background processes that DON'T GO AWAY
when you close its windows. Most of them do go away when you log out,
but I'd rather they not start up in the first place. xffm (and the
other xfce file manager I can't remember) have been quite dainty
processor-wise and don't seem to start anything behind the scenes.

I gather Thunar takes over the desktop and starts some background
stuff in a manner very similar to GNOME... probably looking for
inserted CDs, washing the windows, polishing the silver and all that
which most folks don't mind but on this system they just take up
precious clock cycles with no benefit.

Rather than ditch Thunar entirely, is there a way I can tell it to NOT
start processes in the background? How about Nautilus? I don't mind
all this stuff going on when the app has some windows open, but I'd
like it all to stop when I close them.