How do I stop Emacs from automatically editing my startup file?

Question

Emacs edits my .emacs file whenever I use the customization facility, or when I type a command that is disabled by default. Any automatic editing of my configuration makes me nervous. How can I stop Emacs from ever editing my .emacs. file?

Answer 1

The first thing to do is to stop that silly "disabled command" feature from ever doing anything. If you care this much about your .emacs file, you certainly don't need novice.el bossing you around.

(setq disabled-command-function nil)

The customization facility can be made to stuff all your customizations in a separate file with the following commands.

(setq custom-file "~/.emacs-custom.el")
(load custom-file 'noerror)