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Just spent 5 hours clearing up my desktop


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My PC desktop that is. Files, icons, all over the place. What a mess that was. I've gone and put them all in folders off the desktop now with some shortcuts to important stuff, got myself a nice background image and defragged etc. All looking nice and also noticeably faster.

 

I should really do this more often. Highly recommended!

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I tend to create new folders and shover stuff into there. It's like a Russian Doll thing, folders within folders full of unorganised stuff. Very stop gap.

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17 Icons on my desktop, all a straight line of course.

My comp is about 5 years old now, but still running well.

I do defrag, file cleaning, registry cleaning and organising, etc a couple of times a month.

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I have only one icon on my desktop, which is a folder into which I dump all the junk that otherwise accumulates on my desktop. Doesn't help me find anything any quicker, but dang my desktop looks clean!

 

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When things get too slow, I usually buy a cheap new hdd and install windows onto it. I leave the old one as a working backup. About once every two years I guess.

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My desktop is always empty.

 

"OMG HOW???" I hear you cry. Well:

 

- For quick access to my favourite folders, I use the Quick Launch bar

- For quick access to my favourite applications, I use the Quick Launch bar

- My Docs/downloads for all temporary internet files (excels etc that you download)

- My Docs/TEMP for all files that I think I probably will not need for long

- Every 2 years or so, drag the entire "My Documents" into a new folder called "archive-2010-06" and make a new My Documents. If there are any files in the old one that you need and use often, just drag them into the new My Documents.

- On PC upgrade, burn everything to DVD or external HDD and dont bother putting the "archive" folders onto the new HDD

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Originally Posted By: bobby12
- Every 2 years or so, drag the entire "My Documents" into a new folder called "archive-2010-06" and make a new My Documents. If there are any files in the old one that you need and use often, just drag them into the new My Documents.


Good idea that. Sounds like something to do a bit more regularly than that.
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After reading this I decided mine needed a bit of a clean.

Ah that's better now.

Give it another few days though and it'll be nice and messy once again.

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Actually, any FILES on the desktop are gonna slow the startup significantly, as tghe 'puter has to load the entire file every startup. Far better to have shortcuts to the necessary files on the desktop.

 

I have ALL my files on a network drive (Network Attached Storage or NAS) that I can access from the 2 desktops and/or the 3 or 4 laptops I use at various times during the day at home.

 

Emails are also stored on the NAS drive so I can see all the emails etc from the various computers as well.

 

But, On Topic, all icons on the desktop are shortcuts pointing to where the files are. Even having a full "Recycle Bin" can slow the startup process as the actual files are stored in the bin, so big graphic files binned will be slowing the startup, as will all the binned emails, word docs etc.

 

So ... delete is a permanent thing, my deleted files do not exist any longer, they are gooorne!

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Originally Posted By: JA
Actually, any FILES on the desktop are gonna slow the startup significantly, as tghe 'puter has to load the entire file every startup. Far better to have shortcuts to the necessary files on the desktop.


I learnt that last year and it did make a difference. I had many GB lying around on the desktop!
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Originally Posted By: JA
Actually, any FILES on the desktop are gonna slow the startup significantly, as tghe 'puter has to load the entire file every startup. Far better to have shortcuts to the necessary files on the desktop.


I've never heard of this before and I'm surprised that this makes a difference. The desktop is just a folder whose contents happen to be displayed.

If it's a fairly recent system (last few years) the it has more than enough RAM and CPU to handle it and the perf difference should be non-existent or imperceptible. It is true that it needs to create resources to display each icon on the desktop but this has nothing to do with the contents of the file.

I'm very curious now why this speeds things up.
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When Windoze starts up, it loads the contents of everything on the desktop so it can be accessed immediately. Shortcuts are tiny bits of data pointing to the location of the item. Actual files are loaded in their entirety.

As you said, SC, they are in a folder, but the desktop folder is treated differently to "ordinary" folders.

 

If you don't believe, do an experiment. Save a BIG graphic file onto the desktop - better still, copy a large folder full of big graphics files and time the startup. I have done this in reverse for clients, ie I have removed huge files/folders from the desktop, replacing them with shortcuts pointing to the folders etc, and the result has been a dramatic increase in the speed of the startup process.

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so what you are saying JA is that on the Desktop, you should only have shortcut icons, not actual files as this will slow up the start-up process? I'm gonna give that a whirl because I actually have a few folders with photos that are on my desktop, hopefully I'll see an improvement, cheers thumbsup

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