Download file to desktop

[Bob]

Vista Home Premium.

When I download a file to my desktop I can't see it. If I do a search for
the file it shows that the file IS on my desktop. Anyone else experience
this? What's up with this?

 

[bb]

Vista Home Premium.

When I download a file to my desktop I can't see it. If I do a search for
the file it shows that the file IS on my desktop. Anyone else experience
this? What's up with this?

Confirmed, this has happened to me too, though in-consistently. Refreshing
the desktop (Right-click, Refresh) will make the missing icon appear. As
bugs go, not a bad one, but it is a bug.

-bb

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Why not Download the User Downloads directory? C:\User\Bob\Downloads

 

[bb]

Why not Download the User Downloads directory? C:\User\Bob\Downloads

Because then it takes a bunch more clicks to get to the downloaded 'stuff'.

To clarify my 'confirmation' - very un-occasionally, (2-3 times in several
months) I has seen files placed on the desktop not appear. They were
visible in Windows Explorer but not on the desktop. From the way I dropped
the file on the desktop, the missing icon should not have been off screen.

But specifically, I've not seen this behavior on downloaded files - just
icons that were placed there from other places. Unfortunately, it's not
reproducible.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

When a download completes, all you have to do is click Run.

 

[Bob]

Because it's more convenient to see it on my desktop. Just like a real life
desktop I want to have whatever I am currently working with on my desktop.

Do you know of a fix for this?

 

[Bob]

2 reasons.

I might be doing something else at the moment and want to Run the file a
little later.

Before I Run ANY downloaded file I scan it with AV and Anti-Spyware.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

But you can multi-task switch to something else on the Taskbar. This isn't
Windows 3.1

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Hey Bob, maybe this KB article will help with the desktop not refreshing
when you download items to it:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932406

 

[Bob]

Thanks Andre, but I don't see how the article relates to this issue. Am I
missing something?

 

[bb]

Thanks Andre, but I don't see how the article relates to this issue. Am I
missing something?

Because I suggested that a 'refresh' of the desktop would show the newly
deposited file icon.

I was wrong - it doesn't.

Andre: Here's some more info on the bug:

A few minutes ago I right-clicked and dragged several files from an
explorer window to the desktop and dropped. To the responding dialog I
selected 'copy'. I did this with 5 files, one file at a time; 3 desktop
icons appeared, 2 were missing. One .gif file didn't appear, others did -
so this problem does not appear to an extension/program problem.

(This is where I was wrong.) Refresh of the desktop did *NOT* display
missing the icons. The 'missing' files were found and plainly shown in an
explorer window browsed to c:\user\<name>\Desktop.

I renamed one of them - it instantly appeared in the first open slot on
the desktop. The location was *not* where I originally dropped the file.
Same with the second.

Though I didn't do it this time, previously a re-boot also
re-established the desktop icons.

I could post screenshots, but that wouldn't really show any conclusive as a
screenshot could be easily altered to show just about anything.

System: Dell Inspiron 530, Core 2 Duo 6420 w/2G RAM. Vista Home Premium
w/all patches; not the SP1 RC. It was a simple right-click drag and drop
from one folder on the boot disk to the desktop with a 'copy' selection.
Some programs running minimized (iTunes, McAfee, Firefox, Outlook) but that
shouldn't had any effect.

Correction: In trying to check the above, suddenly now I can't seem to
right-click and drag *any* .gif files and have them appear. Right-click and
move also doesn't appear. Same from a search results window and a standard
browser. Copy (^C)) and paste (^V) works normally, so it's something to do
with the right-click and drag operation that's buggy.

And just a suddenly something else just changed, because now everything,
including the right-click and drag, is working nominally. Maybe the
copy/paste operation reset something? This can be maddingly frustrating!

-bb

bb's second law of computers: If you know only one way to do something on a
computer, it won't work. Know two ways, and either will work fine.