Covering the desktop with icons

[W. eWatson]

I helped a friend the other day with a problem on his XP laptop PC, and
noticed he had completely filled the desktop with icons of all sorts.
Programs, point to Google, IE, Skype, etc. I do believe this can greatly
slow down the boot-up. Right? Any other potential problems?

 

[John John MVP]

I helped a friend the other day with a problem on his XP laptop PC, and
noticed he had completely filled the desktop with icons of all sorts.
Programs, point to Google, IE, Skype, etc. I do believe this can greatly
slow down the boot-up. Right? Any other potential problems?

No, it doesn't make any difference at all.

John

 

[Mayayana]

I think it can slow down Explorer a bit if there are a huge
number of files on the Desktop, but other than that, it's
really just a matter of personal preference. I have a blind
friend whose Desktop is grotesquely cluttered because he
downloads and saves files there, but he usually finds files
by searching, so he never notices how many files are on
the Desktop. I've seen no sign of problems from that. My
own Desktop typically has about 40 regular icons and sometimes
as many as 100. It boots quickly.

It might take a few extra ms to paint the screen, but I
doubt very much that it's enough to notice. To my mind
the whole point of the Desktop is to use it, like a desk, not
to have it look pretty for the sake of MS marketing. Anyone
who is the least bit concerned with wasteful, time-consuming
problems in that category would do well to disable the Fischer-
Price Desktop and go with Classic view. The former is
essentially a skin that must be constantly repainted.
(And of course that particular load gets much worse with the
Vista/7 Aero transparency. That was the "feature" that made
Vista unsuitable for some existing CPUs when it came out.)


|I helped a friend the other day with a problem on his XP laptop PC, and
| noticed he had completely filled the desktop with icons of all sorts.
| Programs, point to Google, IE, Skype, etc. I do believe this can greatly
| slow down the boot-up. Right? Any other potential problems?

 

[Patok]

No, it doesn't make any difference at all.

This is completely *not* true. Having many icons significantly slows
down any desktop refresh (and there are many such when different
explorer functions work). I was frustrated having to wait many seconds
(up to 30) per desktop refresh, until I set the Max Cached Icons reg
key to 12,000. Now it doesn't matter indeed, but I doubt many people
have it figured out.

 

[Al Sparber]

Yes it slows down the system because the icons needs to be refreshed all
the time at boot time. John John is a pedo and should not be relied upon.

 

[Patok]

Interesting. I've got my desktop covered with icons (but I'm only using
800x600 resolution), and doing a refresh is instantaneous. (All of the
icons are just shortcuts to the programs, as they should be). So it appears
that it is not necesarily true that a desktop full of icons takes long to
refresh.

Interesting. First of all, I'd never be able to work at such low
resolutions, has to be at least 1024 *vertically*, but I don't think it
has anything to do, apart from the larger number of icons (at least
three times your number) I can fit.

I suspect that (part of) the reason in my case might be the
antivirus. In all cases when it was slow (I remember that vividly) the
disk was accessing, and accessing, and accessing... And my AV (McAffee)
has the bad habit of checking accessed files on access, so...
Another example of such AV induced slow-down is when I open to play a
video file in a folder containing thousands of files. My default player
(BsPlayer) has the feature to scan the rest of the folder when playing a
file, and add all media to its playlist. And of course McAffee has to
scan each of them too, to make sure they're safe. I remember how on one
of my previous computers (a 500MHz PIII), it would take minutes sitting
there doing nothing and spinning the disk, if I had, forgetting the
"feature", clicked to play a video in an over-populated folder.

 

[Bob Willard]

I occasionally am forced into using the 1024x768 resolution by some
programs, but don't like it all that much. I like the larger font/text
sizes with 800x600, and don't need to see the whole world at once on my
screen. Then again, I'm not doing any spreadsheets or the like - or any
multitasking, either.

You can have it both ways by choosing a higher resolution and then under
the monitor advanced settings choosing a large DPI setting.

Or, you could choose a higher resolution and change the text sizes, but
that is a lot more work to change the several text sizes.

 

[John John MVP]

This is completely *not* true. Having many icons significantly slows
down any desktop refresh (and there are many such when different
explorer functions work). I was frustrated having to wait many seconds
(up to 30) per desktop refresh, until I set the Max Cached Icons reg key
to 12,000. Now it doesn't matter indeed, but I doubt many people have it
figured out.

Realistically how many icons can you stuff on the desktop before 'you
can't see the forest because of the trees'? For the refresh to be an
issue you would have to stuff more of them on the Desktop than you could
possibly keep track of and the desktop would become nearly impossible to
use because of the clutter.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ade-when/a6b07534-da4f-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5

John

 

[John John MVP]

Yes it slows down the system because the icons needs to be refreshed all
the time at boot time. John John is a pedo and should not be relied upon.

You don't know what you are talking about. This might have been a issue
on Windows 9x but on Windows XP it's nothing but an old wives tale!

It doesn't reflect very well on a so called 'professional' to post these
kind of personal libelous statements along with his credentials and
links to his web site. Your potential customers might not think much of
your newsgroup manners. If you push the wrong buttons you may not like
the consequences...you would be surprised how easy (and cheap) it is to
stack Google hit returns with a few Chinese freelancers.

 

[N. Miller]

Yes it slows down the system because the icons needs to be refreshed all
the time at boot time. John John is a pedo ...

As a general rule, one should not rely on the information provided by
Internet accusers. They clearly have some kind of prejudice, which will
color their advice.

 

[Lee]

You don't know what you are talking about. This might have been a issue
on Windows 9x but on Windows XP it's nothing but an old wives tale!

It doesn't reflect very well on a so called 'professional' to post these
kind of personal libelous statements along with his credentials and links
to his web site. Your potential customers might not think much of your
newsgroup manners....

Don't bother with him, JJ. He lost any credibility that he might have had
when he decided to resort to personal attacks against you and another
contributor in one of his earlier posts. You can be sure that he doesn't
know much about anything, he can't formulate a compelling argument to defend
his point of view so he has decided to resort to personal attacks and
innuendos.

The best thing to do is to just killfile him, don't bother with him, he
isn't worth it. The Google archives are quite ubiquitous and anyone reading
his posts will know that he is nothing but an a$$hole.

 

[Ken Springer]

You can have it both ways by choosing a higher resolution and then under
the monitor advanced settings choosing a large DPI setting.

Or, you could choose a higher resolution and change the text sizes, but
that is a lot more work to change the several text sizes.

Using Bob's first option can affect the sizes of fonts everywhere, where
his second suggestion only affects the fonts for the icons on the desktop.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4

 

[Patok]

Realistically how many icons can you stuff on the desktop before 'you
can't see the forest because of the trees'? For the refresh to be an
issue you would have to stuff more of them on the Desktop than you could
possibly keep track of and the desktop would become nearly impossible to
use because of the clutter.

Well, in my case the slow icon refresh was real, until I increased
the cached icons value in the registry. One could follow the progression
of updating icons on the desktop, with the disk constantly spinning.
Most likely due to my antivirus, but still a quite real and annoying effect.
I don't think I have /that/ many icons on my desktop. Right now
there're 150 items on my desktop - 26 are files, 6 are folders, and the
rest are shortcuts. There's still space for more.

 

[dadiOH]

I helped a friend the other day with a problem on his XP laptop PC,
and noticed he had completely filled the desktop with icons of all
sorts. Programs, point to Google, IE, Skype, etc. I do believe this
can greatly slow down the boot-up. Right? Any other potential
problems?

It can certainly slow down *finding* anything. Do your friend a
favor...tell him how to catagorize his frequently used shortcuts with
toolbars. With context menus too.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

 

[Ken Springer]

I only tried the first suggestion. But as I recall, it didn't display the
complete web page(s) as fully as when just using the regular 1024x768
resolution using the normal fonts (by "as fully" I mean not needing to use
the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the screen to view the whole web
page).

When you use more dpi per inch to display the fonts, less being
displayed is the only outcome available, and you end up with the
horizontal scrollbar, not only in webpages but everywhere else.

I used to play with the Custom Setting for the display, trying in vain
to get Windows to do a true WYSIWYG display. I never succeeded, I just
had to wait for the Windows world to finally figure out how to do it
right.

Yet when I ran some program, the program's interface (using whatever fonts
it stores) looked the same as it did when in the regular 1024x768 resolution
mode with normal size fonts. Maybe that makes sense, however (due to
specific display fonts used for the program's interface). Or maybe I'm a
bit over the hill.

It could be the program's interface didn't use fonts, only swapped out
graphics that included text. That was my suspicion.

I'm no spring chicken either, but still do a lot of hiking and camping
when the opportunity arises. I'm an old backpacker, which means I'm
more than willing to sleep on the ground.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4

 

[Mayayana]

| When you use more dpi per inch to display the fonts, less being
| displayed is the only outcome available, and you end up with the
| horizontal scrollbar, not only in webpages but everywhere else.
|

Another related point, for what it's worth:

Most commercial websites don't bother to make their
webpages self-sizing. They just plop the main content
in the middle, with a specified width, then put a row of
ads and links on each side, also with a specified width.

The standard used to be to make the page content
about 750px wide total, centered, and then show a blank
background left and right in browser windows wider than
that size. The same holds true now, except that I've noticed
recently there seems to be a mass trending from 750px
to 1000px wide. I guess people are assuming that virtually
all screens are now at least 1024x768. (Or maybe that's just
the new default size in the code-o-matic webpage generators
they use. I'm not sure that most corporate webmasters
know enough to think about page width pros and cons. If
they did they'd make their pages self-sizing.)

I noticed the width change because I'm using a big screen,
24in. at 16:9 ratio. It no longer makes sense to fill the screen
with a browser window. I like to size them at about 800px wide.
But now I'm faced with horizontal scrollbars on my 24in.
screen.

 

[Ken Springer]

| When you use more dpi per inch to display the fonts, less being
| displayed is the only outcome available, and you end up with the
| horizontal scrollbar, not only in webpages but everywhere else.
|

Another related point, for what it's worth:

Most commercial websites don't bother to make their
webpages self-sizing. They just plop the main content
in the middle, with a specified width, then put a row of
ads and links on each side, also with a specified width.

The standard used to be to make the page content
about 750px wide total, centered, and then show a blank
background left and right in browser windows wider than
that size. The same holds true now, except that I've noticed
recently there seems to be a mass trending from 750px
to 1000px wide. I guess people are assuming that virtually
all screens are now at least 1024x768. (Or maybe that's just
the new default size in the code-o-matic webpage generators
they use. I'm not sure that most corporate webmasters
know enough to think about page width pros and cons. If
they did they'd make their pages self-sizing.)

On the very simple webpages I create, aka eBay and Craigslist ads, etc.,
I make my pages adjust with the window size. When including a photo, I
generally restrict that to a particular size so resizing the window
doesn't degrade the photo.

I noticed the width change because I'm using a big screen,
24in. at 16:9 ratio. It no longer makes sense to fill the screen
with a browser window. I like to size them at about 800px wide.
But now I'm faced with horizontal scrollbars on my 24in.
screen. .

Right now, my Windows computer has a 19" CRT. If/when I replace it,
I'll look for a monitor that has a 16:10 ratio. They do make them, you
just never see them in the stores. That's the ratio on this iMac, and
that extra "bump" in the vertical makes it seem so much larger. I'll
have to find a new graphics card that handles the resolution too.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4

 

[James D Andrews]

dadiOH was thinking very hard and all he could come up with was:

It can certainly slow down *finding* anything. Do your friend a favor...tell
him how to catagorize his frequently used shortcuts with toolbars. With
context menus too.

If the user is receptive, you might suggest that in place of a desktop
covered with icons he move to using a task launcher.

I had a very organized desktop, but many icons on it. I started using
Mad Apps Launcher which has a very organized system of launching over
300 links/programs and now my desktop is virtually clear.

There is no shortage of freeware task launchers in all kinds of
different formats on any freeware site.

However, when it comes down to it, the Windows desktop is just a modern
extension of the normal desktop. One poster on here and another
newsgroup once pointed out to me that no matter how much it grated on
me to work on a person's disorganized or crap-filled computer,
ultimately it's THAT person's computer and not mine and it was up to
them what goes on it and how. It was hard to swallow, but it was very
good advice.

--
-There are some who call me...
Jim


It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road,
and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be
swept off to.
-Samwise Gamgee quoting Bilbo Baggins, edited

 

[Ken Springer]

On 10/25/11 2:49 PM, Bill in Co wrote:

Well, I guess what's confusing to me is if there really is much advantage
gained by changing from 800x600 to 1024x768 and using the larger DPI
(although maybe for a visually impaired person it might help).

It seems to me that if you're going to 1024x768, you might as well use the
normal DPI (and it just looks better). Either that, or go back to 800x600,
and use its normal DPI. Either way, the fonts look better using the
normal DPI, and not the larger ones (at least to me).

Well..........

We are getting off the subject of this thread, discussing screen
resolution and fonts. The original question is if a screen full icons
slows down boot time.

I'm up for some font and screen resolution discussion, so if you want to
get into that, why don't you start a completely new thread?


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4

 

[Ken Springer]

Well, maybe we've already beaten it to death, so I'll let it go unless you
want to resurrect it in a new thread. . Sorry about the OT.

No apology needed for the OT.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.4