Windows XP: Hide All Desktop Icons

Contributor Icon Contributed by gouthro  
Tag Icon Tagged: Windows  

For whatever purpose you can hide all the icons on your desktop without having to delete them.


This is a very simple way to show you how to temporarily hide all desktop icons (including My Computer and Recycle Bin)

    1. Right-click on your desktop.

    2. Select Arrange Icons By.

    3. You will see a Show Desktop Icons with a check on it; click that.

    4. To return the appearance of your desktop items, repeat steps one through three.

 

33 Comments -


  1. Jthib said on November 8, 2008

    I have lost the ability to do this for some reason. Is there a way to fix this?

  2. Fred said on February 9, 2009

    it also removes my wallpaper… so its totally idiot for me cuz i want to hide the icons just to see my wallpaper

  3. J said on February 9, 2009

    Worked like a charm… Best thing to do on friends is take a screenshot of your friends computer while everything in minimised and then apply this as the desktop background.

    Now hide all the icons and watch and laugh as the try clicking on @icons’ and nothing happens

  4. Anonymous said on February 25, 2009

    One of my PC’s (XP Pro) also does NOT have that option.
    Anyone come up with a solution ?

  5. fgsfds said on April 19, 2009

    Well that was ridiculously simple.

  6. buzz said on May 21, 2009

    there is a god.
    thank you
    buzz

  7. Riyas said on June 8, 2009

    many thanks!

  8. Neil said on June 13, 2009

    There is no such “Show Desktop Icons” option.

  9. Anonymous said on July 11, 2009

    On step number 1, you say right click on your desktop. What does that mean? There is no desktop icon, just the front page where all the icons are located. Tell me specifically how and where to find the “desktop” so I can right click it

  10. Ger said on August 22, 2009

    Hah. I have seen this option before. For whatever reason, I don’t have it now. I had it before formatting my PC. I have NO idea what makes it appear or not, lol. So strange. Oh well.

  11. David said on August 26, 2009

    I don’t see “Show Desktop Icons” on my XP box

  12. Anonymous said on September 14, 2009

    1: just right-click on your screen and read options

  13. Anonymous said on November 8, 2009

    How do I make a hide desktop items on the taskbar for shortcut method in XP (sp2)?

  14. Name said on November 18, 2009

    Just found the solution.
    http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

    go to line 246, left hand side. right click and save link as. save it to your desktop, and make sure once its saves it doesn’t have .txt at the end. open it and say yes to merg with the registry. you should now have the show desktop icons option

  15. Name said on November 18, 2009

    forgot, you will also have to restart explorer.exe (if you don’t know how, a restart or log on and off will do it too)

  16. Ritesh said on December 20, 2009

    hi I am using Windows XP,
    but on my desktop when in press right click and go to properties,
    in properties I do not found the two tabs i.e. theme, and for wallpaper (to set center, stretch etc)
    and also in arrange by option I do not get the “hide desktop icon option”

    Please guide me.
    Thanks

  17. Joed Kevin Ubalde said on December 27, 2009

    me too but on my other account
    its ok

  18. Anonymous said on December 28, 2009

    thanks for the help!! needed to know how to do this to play a trick on my friend

  19. shashikarg said on January 27, 2010

    right click on the front page, in an area where there are no icons.

  20. Anonymous said on March 5, 2010

    That is not for xp that is only for Vista

  21. Anonymous said on March 6, 2010

    Thanks for the tip :) very useful when you want to enjoy your wallpaper instead of all your icons :)

  22. Another Name said on May 22, 2010

    Name, awesome. My work computer has this disappeared and I’ve been trying to get the option to show so I can hide the desktop items.

  23. Mkaa said on June 7, 2010

    Um… Any one know how to do that vista hover thing on xp u no u haver over it and then it shows out if any one knows plzzzzz email me that website name where i can download it… my email is mkaa00x@gmail.com and email because i wont come back to this site…

  24. Ghigho said on June 29, 2010

    thank you very very much

  25. Josh said on August 25, 2010

    On my laptop you got to go to “Arrange icons by” then look for it on that list
    Hope that helps

  26. n0isyneighb0r said on October 26, 2010

    nice thanks for the quick tip!

  27. rem bur said on December 20, 2010

    Great, thanks! Works like a charm!

  28. Tksamy17 said on December 30, 2010

    For whatever purpose you can hide all the icons on your desktop without having to delete them.

  29. Tahirkhan said on January 7, 2011

    thanks

  30. Ummmmnoooo said on March 3, 2011

    Is it possible to hide only the icons you want without hiding them all?
    Thanks for you help. :-)

  31. Danny said on April 4, 2011

    In my Windows 7, I click VIEW and check or uncheck View Desktop Icons

    I use it for when I am doing a screen recording with Camstasia

  32. New Richie said on September 16, 2011

    Many thanks for this info. I had allowed Microsoft to do an update and my icons on the desktop disappeared. This cured the problem simply. Thanks.

  33. kwill said on November 13, 2011

    Thanks this works -Right-click on your desktop.select arrange icons by… shows “show desktop icons”-Uncheck that in widows XP

 

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