Recently, I was told that the desktop is great for some things and storing
videos isnāt one of them. āIt can mess things upā is the reason I was given.
Iāve stored videos less than 32 MB and then eventually put a folder to collect
those. The folder is now up to 3.8 GB. This isnāt a shortcut, but an actual
file. I canāt say Iāve noticed any real issues ā yet, but why wait? Please, Iām
curious: is this true or false?
In this excerpt from
Answercast #79, I look at some of the ramifications of storing large files (or any files) on your desktop.
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Putting files on your desktop
Ultimately, the bottom line is false. But before we go running down that pathā¦ itās a slightly slippery one.
What we have to differentiate between are technical issues, which are actually very few, and personal issues which are probably more prevalent.
A clean computer desktop
My preference is to keep an incredibly clean desktop. My thinking is that the desktop is usually hidden and what I want to access is typically more quickly accessed if I put it on a menu or a sub-menu in the Start menu. So, I actually am an advocate for very clean desktop.
I typically have only two icons on the desktop and I rarely even use those.
The alternate, of course, is that lots of people have these incredibly cluttered desktops with all sorts of things on them. And you know what? Ultimately, thatās OK. It doesnāt really cause a technical problem per se. What it does do of course is it makes things difficult to find, at least in my experience ā and it does actually cause things to get backed up or affected in ways that youāre not really expecting. But again itās usually very, very benign.
Desktop is a folder
Ultimately, the thing that most people donāt realize is that the desktop is really nothing more than a folder itself.
Itās a folder that has this unique property that whatever you put in the folder displays on the screen.
So, if you drop a shortcut on your desktop, then that shortcut is going to show up on your screen. By ādropping it on your desktop,ā I mean you drop it in the desktop folder if you find it with Windows Explorer.
Having lots of files on the desktop? Like I saidā¦ itās personal preference. I find it very cluttered; I find it difficult to use. But the number of files, the types of files, the sizes of files doesnāt really matter.
Organizing your computer
The way that things were more or less intended to work is the you would put things (like your documents) in a folder called My Documents.
Youād put your videos in a folder called My Videos perhaps within My Documents (and thatās obviously not being displayed on your screen, on your desktop.)
You could put shortcuts on your desktop ā which are very small files that act as references to the files located elsewhere on your machine. That also keeps the desktop itself fairly lightweight and displaying more quickly.
But ultimately itās really a matter of personal preference.
Cluttered desktops may be slow
The only technical thing that I think of, for people who have a lot of things on their desktop, is literally the amount of time it takes to display the desktop and display all those icons.
In the worst-case scenario, the operating system has to go through and read every single file that has an icon on the desktop to determine what the icon should be. If youāve got lots and lots of icons, lots and lots of things on your desktop, that can take some time.
But ultimately, the short answer is no, it shouldnāt be an issue. Itās a matter of personal preference. Itās not the way that I would do it ā but itās up to you.
(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)
Next from Answercast 79- Why are pictures I email arriving blurrier than what I sent?
One thing that could possibly cause a slow down is having a lot of large image files (jpgs, gifs, etc.) on the desktop and having Explorer set to view them as thumbnails instead of icons. I know this causes XP to slow to a crawl, and I assume 7 and 8 would be similar.
The only thing I can think of, is going back to a time when user data was stored within the āwindowsā directories. Sinse the OS continually scanned these places, there would be a notable decrease in performance as it had to process more and more data (hense the recommendation at the time to move the user data to a seperate drive letter).
I have no idea if this still rings true. I keep my personal data on removeable storage for other reasons.
I also like my desktop clean, but there is one situation when I keep files āonā the desktop ā making presentations. I typically prepare more PowerPointās, spreadsheets, .jpgās and videos ready than I will use in a presentation, put them on the desktop. I can then dynamically adjust as needed.
Audiences seem to tolerate launching files from the desktop during a presentation, but chafe at seeing them launched from Explorer, or worse, searched for while they wait.
At work, I keep all my current project files on my desktop. I have a two monitor system, and keep them all on my left monitor. When I finish project, then I collect all the files and put them away in my closed project file. Sometimes the file might only be a shortcut to the folder the application I am working on puts them. I used to have more on my desktop, but the quick launch toolbar and Pin to Start Menu got rid of that need. My display screens are so big it does seem a waste to not use territory it gives me. I have room for 798 icons on my desktop (not that I would ever do that)
Do bookmarked sites or articles take up memory or cause the computer to slow down? Iām in the stone age with XP.
I use my desktop as a file directory, of sorts. I can see what I need to use at a glance and access anything with a doubleclick. I have them sorted by jobs ā video stuff top center, games down left, this ānā that centered, malware guardians down right. Cluttered? No, not according to me. Itās MY desktop and Iāll decorate it as I damned well please. (You should see my physical desk) Each to their own.
I have a lot of items saved to my desktop.
But, since XP, I hide the desktop, and then use the desktop toolbar.
I know it works the same through Windows 7, but have not used Windows 8, so I donāt know if it works the same.
I thought desktop files would become part of your āProfileā. And the larger your āProfileā, the slower the computer would runā¦I have always just create folders on C (outside of my profile) and then created shortcuts to those folder.
@Mary Ann
Bookmarks and shortcuts take up just an insignificant amount of disk space.
I have ABSOLUTELY nothing on the desktop. This is so I can admiringly look at my wonderful Background Theme!
I store all of my Stuff in a temporary folder under My Documents; then I redistribute the stuff into other appropriate folders.
I REALLY Hate a Messy Desktop!!!
Thanks for Listening.
TR
I canāt see the desktop for the icons. Being a writer I click most of them every day, shuttle those into My Documents when Iām done doing whatever if theyāre considered contemporary. If permanent headings such as Google Chrome, Windows Live Mail and the like they stay there. As said, itās my party and Iāll sigh if I want to.
Here is what I do. I prefer my desktop to keep current active projects located, be it word files that need to be finished, something I just downloaded that still needs to be installed or whatever until they can be ārelegatedā to their respective folders in my profile, e.g. Downloads and the like. On top of this, I located my SkyDrive folder to the same location as my Desktop folder, thereby assuring the most recent changes are immediately reflected online (given an Internet connection obviously). This might even outshine Leoās famous method of overnight backups (sorry Leo :->) since everything is duplicated in the blink of an eye (i.e. the things on my Desktop). And of course, having a lot of documents on your desktop can easily be taken care of by making extra desktop folders.