How to unload your desktop from photos. How to clean the desktop in Windows XP

The standard approach to working at a computer often does not save time. And every person wants to get their business done faster. I describe several techniques that allow achieve efficiency at work.

Unload your desktop and put your folders and shortcuts in order

As you work at the computer, an increasing number of program shortcuts and folders appear on the desktop. To work with them, many people use desktop programs. But Windows has a good solution to this problem. If you take any folder, bring it to the edge of the monitor and throw it further, outward, then a folder strip (panel) will appear along this entire edge of the desktop. It will display all the contents with labels. You can do this on all sides and get convenient storage everywhere. On the right, say, store Internet shortcuts, on the left - shortcuts to the most frequently used programs, and on the top - everything related to protecting and scanning your computer. But this is at your discretion. If necessary, we place any folder, including the system folder, in such a panel. My folder "Program Files" is located in the panel called "Left". Your desktop will look like the one below. Everything you need is at your fingertips within one click. Convenient and fast!

However, there is one inconvenience that you have to put up with: duplicate strip folders are stored on the desktop (that is, also in their usual form - in the photo they are blue at the top left). Unfortunately, they cannot be removed. And the sizes of shortcuts in storage folders can be changed, as well as the width of the folders. In this way, you can increase work efficiency and convenience. In order to remove the side folder strip, right-click on it, then on “Panels” and uncheck the panel name (I call them by location). The panel will disappear IMMEDIATELY. If, after clicking on the selected panel, you select the “Remove toolbar” menu item (i.e., the selected panel), a dialog box will appear to confirm your intentions. In the second case, a little more time is lost. Start installing panels from the top if you want to get it to cover the entire width of the screen.

Unfortunately, in Windows 7 it is no longer possible to create such panels. You'll have to use third-party programs, which I wanted to avoid. But, alas...

Making folders on your desktop colorful

When we put off unfinished tasks on the computer, we sometimes don’t immediately remember them later. To remind them of them, a number of users use so-called sticky notes. But you can do without them. All you have to do is make a folder of urgent matters and highlight them in color. I have two red urgent folders - as you can see in the photo above on the right. I turn on the computer and immediately look at the red folders: is there anything urgent there? And I group other folders depending on the material by color, as well as by the pictures added to them.

To create a shortcut to a program or file, right-click on it and select the item in the context menu that appears: “Create shortcut”.

Use the free programs FolderFon and Folderico to change the color of folders. Both programs have Russian language. Sometimes on some computers, a restart of the operating system is required for the color of the folders to change.

Create a desktop menu button on the taskbar

It is often necessary to open or run something without closing the browser or program. To solve this, you don't need to add any new functions to the Start button. Just right-click on the taskbar, select "Panels" from the context menu and check the "Desktop" box. The following menu button will appear on the taskbar:

Clicking on the double arrow above the red pointer will open a menu that displays the entire contents of your desktop. Just click on the desired item and launch the required one. If the desired program or file is contained in a folder, then when you hover the mouse pointer over it, all objects for selection will become visible. We get a quick and convenient opportunity for effective activities without installing additional programs. You just need to know the functions of Wimdows.

Create desktop shortcuts to shut down and restart the computer

Shutting down and restarting your computer requires 3 steps, which is quite wasteful in all respects. Speak about efficiency in activities don't have to. To work more efficiently, you need to create shutdown and reboot shortcuts on your desktop. Right-click, select “Create”, and then “Shortcut”. The Create Shortcut menu appears. In the “Specify object location” text field, paste the following after copying: C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe -s -f -t 00 and click “Next”. In the new form we write “Shutdown”. Then we do the same for the “Reboot” shortcut, but for it in the first step we insert “Specify object location” into the form: C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe -r -f -t 00. No period at the end. Now just click on the created shortcuts, and we will get the desired result: shutting down or restarting the computer in 1 step. You can replace the shortcuts with ones more suitable for their functions. Right-click on the shortcut, then “Properties” and “Change Icon”. In the window that opens, make your choice of icon. On my desktop, the “Reboot” and “Shutdown” shortcuts look like this.

Your question:

How to get rid of many unnecessary shortcuts and folders on your desktop?

Master's answer:

From time to time it is necessary to restore order not only in the room, but also on the personal computer. Used files and unused shortcuts don't look very attractive on the desktop, they make it difficult to navigate, and sometimes they're just annoying. You can remove unnecessary files in various ways.

If the user does not use the “Network Neighborhood” and “My Documents” folders, they need to be removed from the desktop. To do this, you need to right-click the manipulator in any unoccupied space on the desktop, and then use the “Properties” line in the menu that appears. A similar method: call the “Control Panel” using the main menu of the “Start” system, there click on the “Screen” shortcut.

In the dialog box that appears called “Properties: Screen”, you need to go to the “Desktop” tab. There you need to click on the “Desktop Settings” option, in the “Desktop Elements” window that appears on the “General” page, you need to uncheck the boxes in the fields next to the “Network Neighborhood” and “My Documents” signs. The My Computer folder is usually needed, so you should leave it on your desktop. Then click the “OK” button to apply the selected settings and close the properties window by clicking on the same button.

On this “Desktop” tab, you must select the “Clean up desktop” button, then the “Desktop Cleanup Wizard” will be launched. This utility will help you determine which desktop shortcuts have not been used for a long time, and decide whether to leave them on the desktop or move them to the “Unused Shortcuts” directory. You must follow the installer's instructions to complete the cleaning procedure to the very end.

If the user's desktop has a large number of shortcuts to frequently used applications, it is necessary to move some of them to the Quick Launch panel. To do this, you need to place the cursor on the shortcut of a specific application, hold down the left button of the manipulator and drag it to the quick task launcher panel (the panel located at the bottom of the screen). If the user does not see the icon that was just moved, you need to right-click on the taskbar, select “Toolbars” in the context menu, and then in the submenu set the flag in the “Quick Launch” line. Delete the shortcut you just copied into Quick Launch from the desktop.

Every time the operating system starts, the user usually opens the same applications; it is worth adding them to the Startup menu. To do this, you need to open the “Startup” directory, which is located in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Main Menu\Programs\Startup. You need to copy there the shortcuts of all files that are often used immediately after starting the operating system. And the shortcuts themselves must be removed from the desktop.

Hello dear readers and visitors of the blogSpectr-rv.ru. The topic of today's article will be cleaning the Windows 7 desktop. You will learn how to clean up the desktop, which is to some extent the “calling card” of the computer owner.

As far as I know, many users consider the desktop of their computer as a place for temporary storage of all kinds of files and folders. But, if you do not regularly clear the table of this garbage, then over time it will turn into a real landfill, where it is not so easy to find the necessary materials.

At the same time, numerous folders and files stored on the desktop take up significant space on the system disk, which in itself is not very good and can also negatively affect the computer's performance and stability.

Look what my desktop looked like before I decided to clean it up.

You can free your desktop from everything unnecessary in a fairly simple way, which we will now consider.

HOW TO CLEAN YOUR DESKTOP

First of all, on any partition of your hard drive other than the system one, create a folder intended for storing desktop contents. You can name the folder whatever you like, for example “Desk”.

Inside the “Desk” folder, create several folders to place in them all the materials on your desktop according to their categories.

For greater clarity, you can change the folder icons. This is done like this: right-click on the selected folder and select “Properties” from the menu. In the window that opens, go to the “Settings” tab, click the “Change icon” button and select the appropriate icon for your folder.

Now move all files, folders, program shortcuts, etc. from the desktop to the folders created for them.

Right-click on an empty area of the Taskbar and select " Panels" - "Create a toolbar...».

In the window that opens " New Toolbar - Folder Selector"Locate and select the folder you created "Desk". Click the "Select folder" button.

That's it, the job is finished.

A new “Desk” panel should appear on the right side of the Control Panel. By clicking on the quote located to the right of the panel, you will open the “Desk" folder and you can select the Desktop element you need.

Thus, by completing the specified settings, you will not only free up your desktop and space on the system disk, but also make it easier and faster to find the materials you need. After all, now all the folders, files and shortcuts that were previously on the desktop are sorted into their own folders.

To insert a new file from any folder, just open the “Desk” panel, right-click on the desired folder icon and, in the menu that opens, select “Insert”.

That's all I wanted to tell you about putting your desk in order. Now you know how to clean the Windows 7 desktop and, if desired, you can apply this method on your computer. Thank you for your attention. Good luck!

Proper organization of storing files and information, putting things in order on the computer, will make the use of the PC more productive and increase the efficiency of working on the computer. With proper organization of work on the computer, the user will save a significant amount of time that he spends searching for files; unnecessary data will be deleted from the computer.

Many users often encounter situations where it is impossible to find something on their computer. All the files are piled up in the folders, complete chaos reigns. I think many people are familiar with this. Not only are your files scattered in disarray, but your computer is full of duplicate files that take up significant disk space.

I have already been asked to write this article several times. Visitors, watching videos on my YouTube channel, noticed that the desktop of my computer is practically free of foreign elements, and in Explorer, files and folders on disks are distributed in a certain order and have normal names. I am fulfilling my promise, albeit with a delay of a couple of years.

I often had to deal with folders: “New folder1”, “New folder2”, with files like: “111”, “123”, etc., some folders are empty. Similar files and folders have copies and are duplicated.

Searching in the Windows operating system to access the necessary data with unclear names, if there is a huge amount of it, will not help much. Dealing with the mess will take a lot of time.

In this article I will share my experience in organizing file storage on a computer. If you have your own ideas for organizing the storage and use of information on a PC, share it in the comments to this article.

If you are having difficulty finding the files you need, the free space on your disk is decreasing, and files and folders are gradually taking up space, you should start cleaning up your computer.

You will have to spend a lot of time on properly organizing file storage (in “difficult” cases, you can do this in several stages), but believe me, the time spent will be worth it.

In the future, when there is no more clutter on the computer, you will only have to distribute new files to the appropriate places (disks, partitions, folders, etc.). You'll quickly find the folder, file, or document you need because you'll know where to look for it.

Carry out work on organizing storage and putting things in order on your home computer in approximately the following sequence:

Choosing the right structure for storing information.
Determining the order in which data is stored.
Removing duplicate files.
Putting order on the desktop.
Distribution of files and folders.
Renaming files and folders to give them normal names.
Putting things in order in programs.
Cleaning and defragmenting your computer.
Back up important data.
Constantly maintaining a certain order.

Basic principles of information storage

Before you start putting things in order on your computer, you need to determine for yourself the basic principles for organizing data storage.

All objects must be distributed into categories; in the future, all new objects must be distributed into previously created categories. The data storage structure must meet the following requirements:

the created structure should be convenient and as understandable as possible;
changes should not be chaotic;
it is necessary to maintain order in the selected data storage structure.

As a result, unnecessary and redundant files will be deleted from the computer (since files are often duplicated), space will be freed up on the PC, and productivity will increase.

Determining the order in which data is stored

Proper distribution of information on the hard drive increases the reliability of the computer. In most cases, the computer's disk space is distributed as follows: the Windows operating system, programs, and other important data necessary for the system are installed on the system local drive "C", and the second local drive is used to store user data.

Why are two sections needed? For greater safety and operational reliability. The system and data must be separated.

In the event of a system crash, you will not lose data located on another local drive (drive “D”). Because after reinstalling the system, only the data on the system drive “C” will be lost, everything else will remain intact and safe.

Therefore, it is advisable to have two or more local drives on your computer (for example, drives “C” and “D”). It makes sense to store your personal information on drive “D”: music, movies, photographs, educational materials, software distributions, etc.

Before distributing data, please note the following: there should always be enough space on the system disk to run the operating system and programs installed on the computer. Do not forget about the future (suddenly you install applications that take up a lot of disk space), and that there is free space on the system disk (at least 15-20%) necessary for optimal operation of the Windows operating system. Otherwise, once the free disk space is full, your computer will seriously slow down.

On the system drive “C” there are folders “Documents” (My Documents), “Desktop”, “Downloads”, which sometimes store a large amount of information. These directories can be moved to another partition of the hard drive. Personally, I do not do this, but only control the contents of these folders. I don't store files in the Downloads folder, but rather move downloaded files to permanent storage locations.

After installing a cloud storage application on your computer, the default storage folder is located on the “C” drive. If you use synchronization, all cloud data will be on the system drive.

If the volume of cloud storage is large, the optimal solution is to move the cloud storage folder to another local drive on your computer. In this case, your data from the cloud will not take up space on the system disk.

On my computer, I move cloud storage folders to other partitions. Read the article on how to transfer to another local drive.

On drive “D” of my computer there is a Yandex.Disk folder with a size of more than 200GB, and on drive “E” there is a Cloud Mail.Ru folder with a size of 1000GB. These folders are synchronized with cloud storage and contain important data for me. The folders are on the computer, so I have constant access to these files, and even if the hard drive fails, I will not lose important information, because thanks to synchronization it will be saved in the cloud.

At the moment, I have two hard drives installed on my computer: the first hard drive has two Local drives “C” and “D”, and the second hard drive has one Local drive “E”.

Disks are used as follows:

Local drive “C” (system drive).
Local drive “D” (file storage).
Local disk “E” (file storage).

Once you decide on your computer's drives, remove duplicate files.

Removing duplicate files

Removing duplicates will help weed out unnecessary copies of files, and unnecessary data will be deleted from the computer. Many computer cleaning programs have modules for finding and removing duplicates. To remove duplicate files, you can use specialized programs, for example, .

Cleaning up your desktop

Cleaning your desktop is the first step in the process of bringing order to your PC. The abundance of unnecessary data on the desktop can slow down your computer.

Some time ago, they brought me a laptop with the Windows 8 operating system. The laptop was terribly slow. There were a bunch of folders, shortcuts and files on the Desktop. There were a lot of photos, some of them were duplicated in different folders. I decided to see how much data is on the Desktop. It turned out that it was about 250 GB, which even shocked me a little.

It is convenient for users to run everything from the Desktop, however, then they are surprised at the slow operation of their computer. My suggestions for moving files to another drive or uploading data to cloud storage are often met with misunderstanding. Many people are too lazy to make an extra mouse click to access the necessary files.

The desktop is the place of work (this is not a random name). Nothing should distract you from work. Therefore, you should not place unnecessary elements on the Desktop, which may well be located in other places; leave here only a minimum of objects that are really necessary. After this, you will notice that your work efficiency has increased.

While working, various temporary data may accumulate on the Desktop: folders, files, documents. Follow a simple rule: after completing the work, remove all objects and move them to the appropriate places where they should be permanently stored.

Once you've finished working on a Word document (for example), move the document to storage locations for documents of that type.

There are only three objects on the desktop of my computer in Windows 10: the “This PC” and “Trash” icons, and the “Applications” folder. Using the “This PC” icon, you can quickly get into computer management (read here on the Desktop), and the “Programs” folder contains shortcuts to the programs I use most often, most of which are portable. The portable programs themselves are located on drive “D”.

You can do without such a folder for shortcuts. For portable programs, use a shell program. Portable programs can be located anywhere on the computer, and they will be launched from the shell. The folder with shortcuts for portable programs can be moved to the Start menu in order to launch portable programs from there, along with regular applications.

Distribution of files and folders

Once you have decided on where to store files on your computer, you will need to distribute the files and folders across disks. First, move and sort the data that you understand, and leave what is not yet clear for the final stage of distribution.

On the drive to store files, create folders with clear names, for example, “Music”, “Video”, “Photos”, “Documents”, etc. In these folders, other folders will be created to sort files according to certain criteria.

Create a strict hierarchy of folders in order to clearly understand where everything is.

Let's say you have a lot of photos, videos, and music on your computer. Transfer all multimedia files to the disk that you will use as storage.

The Photos folder will contain individual photos and folders of photos. Group pictures according to certain criteria, for example, the time of shooting, place the photos in folders named according to certain parameters, for example, in the “Sea holiday in such and such year” folder. I recommend always adding dates to folders with photos so that you can easily find the photos you need.

In the “Music” folder, place all the music files that should be divided into categories (folders) by artist name, album title, music genre, etc., depending on your preferences.

Do the same with films, documents, and other files. During the investigation, you will find many unnecessary files that should not be stored on your computer.

An example of folder distribution on my computer. Several folders with clear names have been created on drive “E”. The “Music” folder contains several folders with audio files, including the “80s Disco” and “Foreign Performers” folders. In the “Foreign Performers” folder there are folders named after the names of the performers and the names of the groups.

Program files are organized into folders named according to specific categories.

This logical structure will help you quickly and easily find the file or folder you need.

Clear names of folders and files

It is very important to always adhere to the rule: folders and files must be given clear names. Names should be clear to anyone.

Even if you don't have time to give a meaningful name at the moment, take the time to give the file or folder a meaningful name after you're done. This will save a lot of time, which will have to be spent searching for the desired file or folder.

If there are a lot of files on your PC with unclear names, renaming will take quite a lot of time. Complete this work in several stages.

Putting your programs in order

Pay attention to your computer software, remove all unnecessary programs and games. Check your email inboxes to see if they need cleaning.

Clean up your browsers. Remove unnecessary extensions. Deal with your bookmarks: check your bookmarks (it happens that sites cease to exist), group or conveniently distribute the bookmarks in the visual bookmarks window. If you have a lot of bookmarks in your browser, group your bookmarks into separate folders with short, clear names in the bookmarks bar.

Cleaning and defragmenting the system

After finishing cleaning up, clean your computer of temporary and junk files. When you move large amounts of files, a lot of temporary files appear on your computer. Remove unnecessary files using , or using a specialized program, for example, .

After this, defragment your computer in order to collect the fragments of files in one place on the disk. With significant data movement, the degree of file fragmentation will seriously increase. Performing defragmentation will streamline the distribution of files on the computer and increase the speed of the system.

Save important data with backup

To securely save information, back up your system or important data. By backing up the system to another drive (preferably an external hard drive), you can see the state of the system at the time of backup.

If your operating system crashes, restore Windows from a backup. In the event of a hard drive failure, the system or other data from the backup can be restored to a new drive.

For backup, you can use the Windows operating system, or specialized programs: Acronis True Image (there is a free version -), etc.

Constantly maintaining a certain order

After distributing files, maintain order on your computer, place new files in previously created categories, or create new ones. After completing your daily work, distributing files and folders to permanent locations will not take much time.

Conclusions of the article

Putting things in order on your computer to properly organize data storage on your computer will seriously improve your work efficiency. Files and folders will be distributed across the computer's disks in accordance with a certain structure, the user will quickly find the necessary data.

Vladimir Pavlovich is the owner of a modest business producing earplugs, but looking at the desktop of his laptop, you could mistake him for some kind of secret agent. The entire screen is literally covered with a multitude of files and shortcuts - a real control center for undercover operatives. Behind the huge accumulation of icons, it’s not easy to guess the outlines of a blue BMW, but finding something you need among this pile of information is real torture. Just looking at a screen is enough to raise your blood pressure. But Vladimir Pavlovich is not an agent at all. It's just that his computer is a real funnel of entropy.

It is impossible to say for sure whether there is a connection between Vladimir Pavlovich’s professional activities and the disorder on his computer desktop, because from time to time each of us accumulates a lot of junk or simply materials that are not properly sorted on our screen. Meanwhile, such an environment does not bode well for you: you may not notice it, but according to research, a cluttered computer has a negative impact on your productivity, preventing the normal distribution of time for performing certain tasks and reducing your concentration.

One day, Vladimir Pavlovich decided that enough was enough, and if he wanted his business to prosper, he would have to clean up the mess in his computer and develop principles that would not allow this madness to happen again.

Read today's article about the dangers of desk clutter and how you can deal with it.

The price of disorder

Having a computer cluttered with information is an expensive pleasure. Of course, we are talking about mental costs. Researchers from Princeton University have experimentally proven that people whose desktops are in disarray perform much worse on cognitive tasks than those who have all the necessary files arranged systematically, in a certain order.

The finding that our brains take longer to find the files we need when they're scattered isn't really surprising at all.

Moreover, the additional distractions that probably abound on your desktop act as triggers that force us to solve unimportant tasks - which leads to poor concentration and unnecessary loss of time.

Every icon, browser tab left open, and program minimized to the toolbar is like an annoying reminder of unfinished business and unresolved tasks. As a result, this merciless onslaught of triggers easily leads to the fact that instead of solving the current problem, you are moving in a completely “different direction”.

This kind of jumping from problem area to another, according to Sophie Leroy, a researcher at the University of Minnesota, causes irreparable harm to our productivity, since any problem grabs a piece of our attention, making it difficult to return to the point where , in fact, a distraction occurred.

Removing unnecessary triggers frees up our minds and allows us to focus all of our power on the tasks at hand. Whereas loss of concentration and chaotic surroundings put heavy psychological pressure on us and prevent us from solving problems in the best possible way.

If you need additional arguments in favor of order, keep in mind that in addition to additional cognitive waste and unnecessary waste of time, you also lose in computer performance. Each open tab is an additional load on the processor and RAM. Of course, now there are technologies that allow you to automatically stop the consumption of resources to maintain unused programs and processes, but these are, metaphorically speaking, those drugs that eliminate the symptoms, but not the disease itself.

Removing triggers

So, the first thing you can do to somehow unload your workspace is to create a folder and move into it all the files that are currently on the desktop. Of course, this will not solve the whole problem, because you will simply move the mess from one place to another, but it will still stop being an eyesore.

“Search” (or Spotlight - the built-in search function in Mac OS) will help you quickly find this or that file, so it makes sense to use it, and files that you access every day (for example, a Word editor shortcut) can be easily found in "Recent Documents" tab (or place it on the taskbar).

You can listen to the advice of Vladimir Pavlovich and change the background image of your desktop to some plain wallpaper. If you own an Apple product, you can also use Bartender 2 to put all your running apps at the top of your screen. After all the procedures done, you will start every day with a “clean slate”.

To keep your attention on current tasks and not get distracted, you can turn off all notifications (alerts) from programs:

Caption: “Turn off notifications”

Use the Do Not Disturb feature. Set the time interval from 7.00 to 6.59 am (day):

Once you've turned off all those annoying notifications and tidied up your desktop, you'll need to deal with the biggest enemy of your productivity: your browser.

The first problem is what to do with all the open tabs? First, they need to be divided into several categories. For example, it might look like this:

tabs related to what you are currently doing;
articles you plan to read later;
sites you may need in the future;
communication tools (social networks, etc.).

Sorting tabs will help you quickly bring order to your browser. For example, the URLs of sites that you use daily can be entered into a special sheet, a kind of database. If necessary, you open this sheet (for example, a document on Google Drive) and select the resource you need.

Next - what to do with articles? The truth is that articles you put aside for later are usually never read. But now we are not talking about this, but trying to figure out where to save all these materials. To protect yourself from clutter, you can use the services

Pocket was created in 2007 by Nate Weiner to help people save interesting articles, videos, and more from the web and enjoy them later. After registration, an active button will appear in your browser, when clicked, the current page will be saved in your account:

This is how this button will be displayed in the Yandex browser

Evernote's web clipper also offers more advanced functionality. By clicking on the icon in the top sidebar of your browser, you can choose in what format you will save the page: completely, as a snapshot, as an article, etc.:

If it seems to you that all these tools are nothing more than a way to transfer information noise from one place to another, but not solve the very cause of this noise, know that the abundance of information today is not a problem at all. The challenge is to organize the incoming material so that it does not affect your productivity and clarity of thought, and at the same time is easily accessible when needed.

Another source of chaos in your head and computer is email and social media. These guys are constantly trying to grab a piece of your time and attention, so the best way to deal with them is to turn off all notifications and not keep the pages with these services open while you are doing something that requires strong concentration. Social networks are like jelly - try it once and you will get stuck in it for a long time, reading an endless series of posts from the news feed. You will think that you are busy, although in reality it is just an illusion of activity.

You can also use tools like StayFocusd or Freedom to block yourself from visiting certain resources while you're busy.

Once you've put everything in order on all possible fronts, it's time to set aside time in your schedule to "take out the trash" from your computer and browser and not let the abundance of information overwhelm you. Just 15 minutes a week will be enough. If you do it right, you will experience an increase in efficiency and mental clarity.

Conclusion

You may not think much of it, but chaos in your environment means chaos in your head. Clean up your surroundings and you will feel energized and increase your productivity. The main conclusions of the article are below:

clean your desktop by dumping all files into one folder (or better yet, sort the ones you need and delete unused shortcuts);
turn off all notifications from applications installed on your computer and social networking services;
Leaving too many tabs open in your web browser slows down the speed of your computer and creates a lot of additional incentives for you to get distracted;
use useful utilities such as Evernote's web clipper, Pocket service, or similar applications;
Every week, dedicate at least 15 minutes to clearing away all the garbage that has accumulated over the past 7 days.

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