Desktop Icon Arrangement

[John Williams]

When I right click on my desktop and select Arrange Icons by Name, I get a
continuous list with three sections.

The first section consists of "My Documents", "My Computer", etc. not in
alphabetic order.

The second and third sections are two lists of shortcuts both in
alphabetical order.

The first section is fine as it is although I'd like to know how items get
into that section.

My real question is how do I merge sections 2 and 3?

John

 

[lvee]

How many icons are there on your desktop?
The way it looks to me, and I suppose it makes a bit of a difference
depending on the size of the icons, but I have 12 icons, 9 in a column on
the left side, three in the next column. Mine, also, are not in Alphabetical
order in the first column, but they are in the second, thanks, now the OCD
in me is going to sweat over that one for a few days
Anyway, if you have way more icons than I do, they, of course, are going to
divide into more columns, but, you can change their location, as well as
other modifications. Just go to the taskbar, right click>properties>Start
Menu>customize>small icons. You can also change your screen resolution to
1280 x 1024 which will make everything much smaller. If those don't work,
and it still bugs you , you could run the desktop cleanup wizard.

 

[jimpgh2002]

How many icons are there on your desktop?
The way it looks to me, and I suppose it makes a bit of a difference
depending on the size of the icons, but I have 12 icons, 9 in a column on
the left side, three in the next column. Mine, also, are not in Alphabetical
order in the first column, but they are in the second, thanks, now the OCD
in me is going to sweat over that one for a few days
Anyway, if you have way more icons than I do, they, of course, are going to
divide into more columns, but, you can change their location, as well as
other modifications. Just go to the taskbar, right click>properties>Start
Menu>customize>small icons. You can also change your screen resolution to
1280 x 1024 which will make everything much smaller. If those don't work,
and it still bugs you , you could run the desktop cleanup wizard.

Go to a folder called "Documents and Setting". Under that you will
find a folder call "All Users" as well as folders for each user
defined to the system.

Each of these folders will have a folder under it called "Desktop"
which contains the icons relevant to that user.

What you're seeing is a combination of the "All Users"/Desktop and the
desktop under your personal user folder.

You have several options. If you're the only user, move all the icons
from your personal user folder/desktop to All Users/desktop. Then go
to your desktop and do a right click/arrange icons by name.

 

[Guest]

I have just messed up my desktop to see what you mean. When I right click and then choose arange icons by name I get four even rows with 14 icons in each and every one in alphabetical order. Unless of course they have numbers or abreviations then they're at the beginning where you will also always find the recycle bin. Now I have to ask. Are you sure these are indeed shorcuts and not complete programs? Your desktop should only ever have shortcuts on it never any programs at all. }:~)

 

[lvee]

Why is it that the desktop should not have programs? For example, I have the
shortcut icon for SpyBot S&D, Ad-Aware, to name a few. Should those be sent
somewhere, or removed altogether? I thought that is what a shortcut was for,
so those things could be accessed from the desktop.

I have just messed up my desktop to see what you mean. When I right click

and then choose arange icons by name I get four even rows with 14 icons in
each and every one in alphabetical order. Unless of course they have numbers
or abreviations then they're at the beginning where you will also always
find the recycle bin. Now I have to ask. Are you sure these are indeed
shorcuts and not complete programs? Your desktop should only ever have
shortcuts on it never any programs at all. }:~)

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Why is it that the desktop should not have programs? For example, I
have the shortcut icon for SpyBot S&D, Ad-Aware, to name a few.
Should those be sent somewhere, or removed altogether?

No, that's fine. Don't change it.

I thought that
is what a shortcut was for, so those things could be accessed from
the desktop.

The point made below (and I agree with it) is that you should
have *shortcuts* to programs on the desktop, but not the programs
themselves.

The main reason is that what's on the desktop are normally
shortcuts, so we feel free to delete any icon we see there,
knowing that we're not deleting the actual program itself. But if
you mix programs and shortcuts on the desktop, it's too easy to
get confused and delete something you didn't really want to.