AdminXP.com: Using the Desktop

Using the Desktop

The desktop always appears immediately after starting and logging in to Windows spread over the whole screen of your monitor. It is often compared to the classical work desk onto which you can place different things in order to be easily accessible. In the same way you can place objects onto the desktop in order to ensure their immediate availability.
The content and the look of the desktop can differ according to manufacturer´s and user´s settings. The default setup only contains the Recycle Bin´s icon and the Start menu having the basic look and content according to Windows XP.

Default setup for Windows XP (the only icon is here - Recycle Bin)

Example of a look of the desktop with an active and an inactive opened window, many

shortcuts and two-line Start menu (classical setup for Windows 2000)

On the desktop you can find:

Start menu and Main panel (details in the Main panel and Start menu article)
Active and inactive windows (details in the Window management article)
Desktop background - it can be a plain background containing one color, a chosen picture (photo) or a web page within the Active desktop.
Icons - small pictures representing different functions, objects (programs, folders, files) and settings.

Desktop content - Icons

There is usually a shortcut of a program or a document hidden behind the icon in 95%. Such shortcut can be easily removed without worrying that you loose some data. 5% can be real data. The shortcuts and the desktop content is saved to a directory representing the desktop on the hard disk. Into this directory and onto the desktop you can place not only shortcuts but also files and folders containing real data. I definitely do not recommend this, but some users use it.

Unlike icons containing real data, the shortcuts have a little arrow in the left bottom corner.

The desktop content is saved to profiles of particular users. In your computer it will probably be %SYSTEMDRIVE%Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Desktop. User's desktop shortcuts are stored here. Icons that will be displayed on the desktop and you will not find them here, you will certainly find in the All Users profile directory.

Icons that are displayed for all users you will find under the profile called All Users

The icons of My Computer, Documents, My network Places and Recycle Bin are an exception.

My Computer

About how important the local menus of the icons on the desktop really are you can learn more in the article called The basic use of the mouse.
By double-clicking the icon you will start an Explorer-like window where the left-hand panel of the tree structure is replaced by panels: System Tasks, Other places and Details. All disks present in the computer will be displayed here.

System Tasks - until you select an object in the right-hand part, you can use this to display the Control Panels and to quickly access the System information and the Add or Remove Programs panels.

When browsing files on the disk, the panel changes to the Files and Folders Tasks panel. Items contained in this panel display tasks that you can do in the appropriate directory or with selected objects.
Other places - refers to other important places in the system (My Network Places, Documents, Control Panels..)
Details - provides basic details about the chosen object.

My Documents

Destination folder used for saving documents. It belongs to the user profile - %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Documents

My Network Places

Right-click - Properties (Network connections control panel), Search for computers, Map network drive, Disconnect network drive.

By double-clicking you will display a My Computer-like window where the first panel is replaced by the Network Tasks panel. Computers and network components are displayed in the right-hand part of the window.

Recycle Bin

When deleting files and folders, they are first moved to the Recycle Bin as the default Windows setup says. If you do not change this and still use the bin, the deleted files you can easily retrieve anytime you want.
Until you empty the Recycle Bin, the files will be stored on the hard disk.
The Recycle Bin is only used for files and folders deleted from the hard disk. When deleting files from diskettes, network disks and files that are larger than the bin can hold are deleted immediately.

After an object is moved to the Recycle Bin, the icon changes to a picture of a full bin. To display the stored deleted files double-click on the icon. You can empty the bin or display its properties by opening the local menu.

Double-click on the bin's icon. You will see all files that can be retrieved. By help of the mouse choose files that you want to retrieve and in the local menu or in the File menu choose Restore.
Empty recycle bin - in the icon's local menu you will find a command that permanently deletes all files and so creates more disk space (there is a hidden system folder called Recycled for removed files on each disk).

Recycle Bin Properties - enable to set up the size of the space for deleted files. The default setup is to use the maximum of 10% of the whole disk partition size. The size can be configured for all units or separately for each partition (suitable if the differences between particular partitions´ sizes are large). After the maximum size of the bin is reached, Windows automatically release the space for new objects.
Do not move files to the Recycle Bin - when you disable using the bin for removed files, you will gain some disk space and faster file removing (deleting is always faster than moving). But you will loose the chance to retrieve files removed in error. If you remove files in the Explorer, you can remove them permanently by pressing Shift + Delete or by pressing and holding the Shift key while moving objects into the bin.

Internet Explorer

This icon serves for opening the Internet Explorer. It can also display the Internet Properties control panel by opening the local menu and choosing the Properties command.