Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
AFAIK, the only way to invoke a Finder quit event within the normal user interface environment is by adding a Quit menu item to the app via Terminal's defaults write command

Another way is to create an AppleScript containing the single line:

tell application "Finder" to quit

and saving that as, for example, ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Finder/"Quit Finder.scpt". While you're in AppleScript Editor, go to Preferences->General and put a checkmark on "Show Script menu in menu bar". Now, whenever you're in Finder, you can choose "Quit Finder" from the Script menu. Bring Finder back by clicking on its Dock icon. I've been doing that at least as far back as OS X 10.4 Tiger, and I think even before that. (I didn't start using OS X until OS X 10.2 Jaguar, and I think that's when I started doing this, but all the pieces were in place and would have worked even on OS X 10.0 Cheetah.)

You can set the whole thing up without ever launching Terminal or any third-party apps. Once set up, it's a simple menu selection. Does that count as "within the normal user interface environment"?