items on desktop affects performance??

[LordSnailz]

Just spoke with our local IT person over the phone ... he was logged onto my computer over netmeeting to help troubleshoot another issue, but when he saw that I had over 20 items on the desktop he commented that the more icons I have there the slower my computer will get ... is there any truth in this if so why? TIA!

 

[igowerf]

Bla. There's a lot of anal retentive people who freak out if your desktop is cluttered. If you have 20 things load up in your system tray, then you might notice some performance issues.

 

[TheWart]

if your computer is faster than 500mHz i wouldn't worry about icons.

 

[notfred]

Hahaha, the computer doesn't spend a particularly large amount of time drawing icons on the desktop. In fact, when you've got a window open and covering them, it doesn't draw them at all. I wonder how people get hired for support positions when they beleive stuff like that.

 

[LordSnailz]

thanks guys ... I'm one of those messy ppl. that loves to dump everything on the desktop, and yay! I can still be a slob now ...

 

[tkdkid]

Yeah it's ok...a lot of times help desk people just don't know what they're talking about. It's even worse because their in a position of authority so that their misinformation gets spread around more quickly.

 

[chizow]

He might have been referring to boot-up time and memory usage, as multiple desktop icons, windows animations, themes, wallpapers etc. will use memory and cause a longer boot-up. Navigating Windows on a clean desktop with the "classic" appearance can provide a noticeable difference in performance on slower machines.

Chiz

 

[Mutilator]

Originally posted by: Tyler
Hahaha, the computer doesn't spend a particularly large amount of time drawing icons on the desktop. In fact, when you've got a window open and covering them, it doesn't draw them at all. I wonder how people get hired for support positions when they beleive stuff like that.

Actually I seem to remember from years ago that Windows DOES still draw all the icons on the desktop even when you have a window open or a game running. Ofcourse this was back with 95/98 so maybe they changed that in 2K/XP.
Even if it doesn't it does slow your comp down slightly... all though you shouldn't notice it on a newer system. Jump on a Pentium 200 computer with 20 icons and open My Computer... then close it and you'll notice the slow down though. 😉

 

[dakels]

old msg but a search caught my eye.

anyways, XP does redraw icons if I understand what you mean by drawing. I have probably about 30 on my desktop and often, especially when I quit out of applications, I can see the visible redraw from generic file icons to the actual icon. It only takes a 1-2 seconds when I even see it, but my system is a P4 2.66ghz, 1gig DDR 3000, Radeon 9700. I can imagine that this could be a little bit of a nuisance on slower machines. I like having icons visible on my desktop for 2 main reasons. I can drag unidentified files over it, which is very handy to do with many applications when you want it to force it open with that app, and 2, for easy access because sometimes finding the software in the start menu is a PITA when the application is in a subdirectory by the company name.

I do have all shortcuts though as a habit. I do not put large folders and files on my desktop as a habit from my mac OS which has to catalog all the stuff on the desktop in a desktop DB file. The more crap in your desktop DB file and folder (In OS 9), the more it can hurt performance of the OS's frontside. It looks like windows operates in a similar fashion. Also, all stuff on the desktop is not root correct? thats why when you go to the C: dir, you will see the contents of whats on your desktop within other folders (personal documents for that user). Also allows for different desktop icon sets for each different user.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Sounds like a typical "IT" dumbass.