Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Cleaning up and organizing your desktop

You have this nice desktop background and a cool color scheme. But the desktop looks cluttered. There's a grid of little icons like tombstones in a cemetery. And they seem to be multiplying, even though you don't remember putting them there. Those are your desktop icons.

Where did they come from, and why are they there? When you buy a new computer, the manufacturer often adds shortcuts to software that you can try or buy. Also, when you add new software or devices, the installation program asks whether you want to place a shortcut on the desktop. Fortunately, you can manage the icons in several ways:

• Organize the icons into tidy rows and columns
• Hide all desktop icons
• Delete individual icons you don't need
• Add a desktop toolbar

Tidying up your desktop icons

If you simply need to organize your icons into tidy rows and columns, you should follow these steps:

1. Right-click an empty area of your desktop.
2. On the menu that pops up, hover over View.
   When you right-click the desktop and click View, you can arrange, hide, or resize desktop icons.
3. Organize the icons as desired:
   • To tidy up the icons, select Auto arrange icons or Align icons to grid, or both.
   • Auto arrange icons is useful when you've dragged shortcuts to the desktop and they are scattered all over. Align icons to grid organizes the icons into uniform rows and columns.
   • If you don't want to see any icons on your desktop, clear the Show desktop icons check box.

Clearing Show desktop icons is useful when you have so many icons that they litter the nice desktop background you've chosen or it now takes you a long time to find the icons you want to click. If you like using the desktop as a container to hold all your favorite links and program icons, the section "Accessing your desktop with a toolbar" shows you how you can get to those links without showing them on the desktop.