Many users very often place program and file icons for quick access right on the "Desktop", and sometimes installed applications put their own shortcuts there. We will talk about how to remove the icon of an unnecessary or unused applet (file, command, etc.) from the “Desktop”. When performing the steps below, you need to clearly understand that there are only two methods to get rid of unnecessary shortcuts: either hide them (disable) or delete them.
How to change the icon on the "Desktop"?
To begin, let's see how you can change the standard icons of applications, directories or files located directly on the main workspace. You can either change their size or change the icons corresponding to each object.
In the first case, you can use the PCM menu, where the view item is selected, and in the menu that opens, one of three standard sizes is set. To simplify your task, while holding down the Ctrl key, you can simply scroll the mouse wheel forward or backward. Accordingly, there will also be a resizing of the icons on the "Desktop".
If you need to change the icon itself, through RMB on the selected object, go to the properties item, then on the shortcut tab, click the icon change button and specify the location of the image file (for example, in the standard ICO format).
Note: if necessary, you can download additional icon sets from the Internet. In Windows 10, icons for folders and files must be placed in the System32 directory (if it comes to standard applets), and after restarting the system they will become available for use. However, where exactly you place the downloaded sets does not play a special role. Also, when installing some applications that completely transform the system interface (for example, WindowBlinds), when installing a specific theme, the program will change the standard system icons (but not user application icons) without your participation.
How to remove a file or application icon from the “Desktop”: methods for deleting icons
Now let's move on to cleaning up the workspace. Speaking about how to remove the icon of some object from the “Desktop”, we can offer the most primitive solution, which consists in the usual removal of the icon.
To do this, you can use the corresponding PCM menu item or by pressing the Del key. To delete an object without placing it in the Recycle Bin, use the Shift + Del combination.
How to hide all elements without their physical removal?
The above method is quite simple, but sometimes you don’t want to delete the icons. How to remove the icons from the "Desktop" by hiding, so that they simply were not visible, but at any time they could be turned on and reused?
To do this, in the same PCM menu on free space in the subsection of the view, you can deactivate the icon display item, after which absolutely all icons will disappear from the “Desktop”, including the “Trash”, “Computer” system components, etc.
Personalization options for system icons
If you have questions about managing system applet icons, you can use the personalization options, where you will need to go to the topic settings section and then call up an additional menu by clicking on the icon settings link.
Here you can disable or enable the display of some icons, as well as change the standard icon to any other.
Group Policy and Advanced Panel Settings
To change the display settings of system icons, you can use the more laborious method. For example, you can edit the group policy settings (gpedit.msc).
In the user configuration, through the administrative templates, go to the “Desktop” subsection, and then to delete the system icons, set the corresponding state to on.
If absolutely everything needs to be removed from the “Desktop”, go to the “Desktop” subfolder and activate the “Disable all elements” option.
Note: similar actions can be performed in the system registry, however, this technique is more complicated for the average user in terms of the fact that they will have to perform the opposite actions. Yes, and changing the registry without special knowledge is not recommended under any pretext, since any change in it is saved automatically, and it will be impossible to cancel the operation or roll back the state of the registry without a previously created copy.
Finally, you can take advantage of creating a new panel that will be displayed next to the system tray by setting an arbitrary name for it and placing icons on it from the main workspace that you want to hide. When you expand the created panel, they will remain available for use. Of course, you can create several panels by grouping icons or their corresponding applications or files by type.
To simplify working with toolbars, you can also use the simplest programs like True Launch Bar, in which there are slightly more options than is provided for in the Windows systems themselves.