Does anyone know... (windows issue)

Right so don't have any icons aside from stuff I'm working on or in transition on the desktop, but occasionally I access stuff from a window the points to the desktop.

In that new window are icons for the library, homegroup, home folder, computer, network control panel, rubbish bin, in vista it had IE... But damned if I've ever been able to get rid of them. wtf, they are just annoying clutter and make it hard for me to quickly find stuff I actually did put on the desktop.

Does anyone know how to permanently remove them?

You mean like this?

That's 7, pretty sure Vista is the same.

Rick click desktop, Personalize, "Change Desktop Icons", untick everything. The New Folder you see in my screen cap is just the folder I dumped all my icons in for the purposes of the screen cap.

Nah my desktop is clean, but the icons still display if you view the desktop from a folder:

Why bother getting rid of them from a folder. If you have the stuff you want on the actual desktop, then just look there.

If you want to view stuff you access frequently from a folder, then just make a seperate folder from the desktop one and put stuff there instead?

Seems kinda odd to me to want to shove stuff on the desktop but access from a folder when it's on the desktop anyway.

Anyway, I suspect some like those items are permanently part of the desktop and when you "delete" them it means they are just not shown on the actual desktop.

PS. Windows key + D

I'd have to actually do it to figure out what occasions I do, but possibly it's when I have a couple of fullscreen apps open or a few windows obscuring the desktop and I want to access something on the desktop without minimising everything out of the way first.


...
Holy shit! Win+D doesn't cause you to loose drag and drop!

That I think is what was bugging me, mac at work has expose and show desktop with corner hotspots and the big bonus is you can drag and drop while doing so.

Cheers harvey

I still wish they'd let you hide the icons though, just thought of another scenario, when your opening or saving a document from the desktop, gets harder to find with the extra clutter.

Right, now that I read the OP when sober, I see how much I misunderstood it in the first place haha.