News - Eliminate clutter and organize your desktop - Eliminate clutter and organize your desktop

If you are like me, your computer desktop is more cluttered than any room in your home. Are there program icons scattered over the desktop? Do you have MS Word, PDF and Excel Files everywhere? More than likely these files are so old that you have no clue as to what they are. Also, if you bought your PC from one of the well known PC manufacturers you probably have at least 20 icons on your desktop that were loaded on that PC installation. So it may be time for a little cleanup and organization.

    First, look at a tool that comes with Microsoft’s Windows XP, called the Desktop Cleanup Wizard. This tool is designed to run automatically every 60 days (by default) to remove unwanted shortcuts from your desktop. When run, the utility will remove all of those shortcuts without harming any of the associated programs and place all selected icons into the Unused Desktop Shortcuts folder on the desktop. Run this utility by following these steps: Click Start, Control Panel; then in the Control Panel, click Appearance and Themes under Pick a category; then click Display; then in Display Properties click the Desktop tab, then click customize Desktop; and then Under Desktop Cleanup, click Clean Desktop Now – the Wizard will start.

    For those of you who are a little more advanced you can edit the registry so that the wizard is run less or more often. Do so by following these steps:

[Start] [Run] [Regedit] Registry Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\CleanupWiz
Modify/Create the Value Data Type(s) and Value Name(s) as detailed below. Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: Days between clean up

    Note: If the value name isn’t present, run the Cleanup Wizard manually one time to create the value automatically.

    Setting for Value Data: [Enter the decimal value for desired number of days between cleanup] Exit Registry and Reboot

    Tip of the Month – Want to show your files in groups? Try this: Open My Documents, Double Click a Folder you want to view, on the view menu select Arrange Icons By, then select Show In Groups.

    Acronym to know: IP Address.  To learn more visit http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/IP_address.html. For general computer questions email the Camden News System Dude at eric@talktechno.net.