Fact or Fiction

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lucky Linda
  • Start date Start date
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Lucky Linda

I have been told that by having program icons on the destop will slow m
startup and slow connections. Is this true and/or what is the best wa
to handle the desktop with icons
 
Lucky said:
I have been told that by having program icons on the destop will slow my
startup and slow connections. Is this true and/or what is the best way
to handle the desktop with icons.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry. I can't see why they should slow down connections at all
(assuming you mean internet traffic etc.) but lots of desktop icons *can*
slow down start-up. A little. However, I have to say that people get
unnecessarily hung up about the amount of time it takes for their computer
to start. The time taken depends on a lot of factors, like how many
background processes are loading (mine loads 37 processes) and writing icons
to a packed desktop would be a very minor additional delay. Regular disk
checks and defrags will help more than anything else.

In my experience the major delay is cause by anti-virus software starting
up - and there's little you can do about that. Unless it's taking more than
a couple of minutes to settle down, it's much better to stop worrying; just
switch on and go make yourself a cup of coffee. When you get back you'll be
in full working order.
 
The number of icons on your desktop has nothing to do with Windows
startup or your internet connection.

By "program icons" I hope you mean shortcuts. For example, the file that
starts Microsoft Word is winword.exe. You wouldn't put a copy of
winword.exe on your desktop - that would be a waste of disk space. But
you could put a shortcut to winwood.exe on your desktop.
 
Lucky said:
I have been told that by having program icons on the destop will slow
my startup and slow connections. Is this true and/or what is the best
way to handle the desktop with icons.
Click to expand...



Fiction. It's not true.
 
Back in Windows 3.0 days, when a good computer had 2 meg of RAM, icons took
up resources needed by programs.

This stopped being true about the time Windows 95 came out. RAM prices
started to fall and computers typically came with 16-32 meg. Many people
upped this to 64 to 128 meg.

Desktop icons do not impact a modern system at all, unless it is so marginal
that you should not be running Windows XP anyway.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Num icons on desktop won't affect boot time.

Having MAPPED DRIVES (to network shares) will slow it down, especially if
the drives are not actually available at boot time - it can add 30 seconds
to the boot time.

Perhaps that's the source of said rumor...
 
Fiction. It's not true.
Click to expand...

Ken, while that is true, if the icons have associated
services or tray apps which start as a part of windows,
sufficient numbers starting using enough processor time and
/or ram can slow the pc. In this case, she may NOT have
anything to worry about (save clutter).
 
Lester said:
Ken, while that is true, if the icons have associated
services or tray apps which start as a part of windows,
sufficient numbers starting using enough processor time and
/or ram can slow the pc.
Click to expand...


Of course, but the question was not about what programs start automatically,
but about what is the effect on performance of having icons on the desktop.
The answer to that is as I said--none.
 
Lucky Linda said:
I have been told that by having program icons on the destop will slow my
startup and slow connections. Is this true and/or what is the best way
to handle the desktop with icons.
Click to expand...


Slowing connections? You mean an Internet connection right? There's no reason why it would. Can you tell us where you heard it
and if there was an explanation?


As for slowing down startup, it's certainly possible. To display icons on the desktop (especially at startup) Windows must
1: read the shortcuts themselves
2: read the associated files
3: extract the icons
4: display the icons
Normally this can happen pretty quick, but if you've got a virus scanner running, then the first three steps which access the files
will probably be slowed down as it scans each one (this applies to both programs AND documents which get their icon from the program
file). The last step shouldn't be a problem unless you've got a LOT of them on the desktop, in which case it can slow things down
during startup since the CPU is usually already running at 100% capacity. Also, when there's more icons on the screen than space to
show them, Windows has to determine which ones are visible and which ones are clipped which just adds to the CPU's already full
load. As a result, you'll probably be able to actual see them being drawn. At other times when the CPU is not under such a heavy
load, then it happens very fast (while at other times when the CPU is loaded again, it will be slow.)

If you've got some shortcuts or files on the desktop it's fine. If the whole screen is filled (or if there's even more than that),
consider organizing as many as possible into some folders on the desktop. Folders are fast since their icons is already present in
memory and no file access is required (hence no AV scan).
 
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