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I had updated various plugins (using the plugin manager), some of which required a restart. However, not wishing to interrupt what I was working on, I selected to restart by hand later. However, on opening another file (outside of any project) using the command line "netbeans --open ..." option, the splash screen reappeared and I saw the "unpacking modules" message. This was in NB 6.0 (I think, I do have 6.1 installed as well) on Windows XP.
It's a problem of nbexec launcher. It should skip over running updater in this case.
This bug was reported against NetBeans IDE 6.0 or an older release, or against a non-maintained module. NetBeans team does not have enough resources to get to this issue, therefore we are closing the issue as a WONTFIX. If you are interested in providing a patch for this bug, please see our NetFIX guidelines for how to proceed. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you. The NetBeans Team