I like Mountain Lion a lot, but have to say that I’m not a fan of Notification Center. I see the benefit of this feature for some users, as it tells you when things are available to be done.
At the same time, it can be a nuisance, as messages reappear until you complete them, such as a software update to the system. Because it’s built into 10.8 Mountain Lion, you only have the option to temporarily disable it. It will automatically turn itself back on after 24 hours.
After some research I have found a way to deactivate the notification center through Terminal. Remember, Terminal is an application that gives you, the user, access to the code that runs the machine. There are lots of useful things that can be done with it, but only experienced users should use it, as you can cause sometimes irreversible damage to your system. Before anything is done, I always recommend a full system backup.
Now to the fun stuff…first you are going to want to open up Terminal. Terminal is located in the ~/Applications/Utilities folder. If you are a fan of keyboard shortcuts, you can go directly to the folder with the easy shortcut of command+shift+U. Once terminal is open, type in:
sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui KeepAlive -bool false
A “sudo” command requires admin access, and will ask for the administrative password for the machine.
After entering your admin password, enter:
killall NotificationCenter
Once that has been entered, you will need to log out and back into your account, and you will have disabled Notification Center. If you ever change your mind on this, the whole process can be reversed by entering the following code:
sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui KeepAlive -bool true
killall NotificationCenter