Disobedient Desktop! HELP!!

andyrules

Well, I spent several hours sorting out my desktop, as it was cluttered to the point of icons disappearing over the edge:o. Somehow, about 2 dozen or so of my latest word pages have ended up as shortcuts there . I had a look at saving options, but can't see anything obvious that I've done.

So I opened every icon (including old software ones), took me ages, deleted, checked all word docs are in files elsewhere, organised them, and then organised everything left neatly on desktop. Great result. Turned off pc.

Today, I booted up, and desktop is back to its old self - icons spilling everywhere!! Feel like the binmen have returned my rubbish all over the lawn:sad::sad:

Can any of you smart techies explain what's happened, and what i can do after I re-organise it all again?

Cheers

aliEnRIK

I recall my grandfather having a weird problem that sounds similar. He ended up with around 3 and a half thousand icons on his desktop (They just kept on replicating themselves)
I thought it was a virus but it transpires it was some weird windows glitch

I went to the desktop via 'my computer' and put the desktop up as a 'detail list' then highlighted everything I didnt want (Took a fair while) and deleted them. Problem cured

andyrules

ta rik, 3.5 thousand :eek:, feel a bit better now, the word icons refer to docs in Mydocs and I want to keep them, just delete them off the desktop. If I do what you did, they will stay in mydocs folder, yes?

andyrules

I've gone into Mycomputer, but as soon as I highlight and delete a file it re-copies itself!! Some are now copy 7!! I'm just making it worse.

-TangleFoot-

What version of Windows are you using?

andyrules

XP 2002

I've finally got rid of them all - again, had to do each one separately - only just finished! Hope they don't come back! I think it might have been when I pressed control to highlight more than one??

-TangleFoot-

You may have dragged a few by accident. That's how I usually make copies of things I don't want!

For future reference, you can delete all shortcuts from your desktop with two simple commands:

del C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\*.lnk
del C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop\*.lnk

Where C is the drive your user profiles are stored on, and User is the name of your user account.

andyrules

thanks, I'm not entirely sure how you mean do I go into CDrive? I went that way to desktop as Rik said, where do i go after I'm in cdrive?

-TangleFoot-

You don't need to 'go' anywhere; commands are typed into the command prompt, which can be accessed via Start→All Programs→Accessories→Command Prompt. Alternatively, you can copy each line into the Run box (Start→Run).