XP: Make the Background of Your Icon Text Transparent on the Desktop

Contributor Icon Contributed by MickeyMouse  
Tag Icon Tagged: Windows  

One of the reasons XP’s desktop looks so much better is that you can make the background of your icon text transparent.


People ask me all of the time what program I use to make my icon text transparent. People are used to the pre-XP days when this was not easily possible.

This ability is currently very easily accomplished in XP. The feature is just not well named.

    1. Open the Control Panel
    2. Click System
    3. Click the Advanced tab
    4. Click Settings in the Performance section
    5. Check the “Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop” checkbox
    6. Click OK until you close the windows

“Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop” has to be the worst name ever. Not knowing what this is… people typically uncheck it to try to increase their computer performance. Then since it is named so poorly, people can’t figure out why their icon text now looks so windows 98ish.

 

102 Comments -


  1. Hrs said on October 3, 2008

    thanks

  2. rick said on October 3, 2008

    tks!!

  3. kate said on October 13, 2008

    EVERYBODY SAYS DO THIS.

    DONE IT TEN TIMES.

    DOES NOT WORK NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I REPEAT!!

    ANYTHING ELSE NEW?????

  4. K said on October 15, 2008

    THANK YOU CAROLYN

  5. selvan777 said on October 17, 2008

    Thanks a bunch Newboy, your tip fixed mine.

  6. anunumus said on October 18, 2008

    carolyn I LUV U!!!!!!!

  7. goran said on October 22, 2008

    eXtra, thank you!

  8. Pious said on November 19, 2008

    Cool! works for me

  9. xerp said on November 24, 2008

    doesnt work for me, although i used to have it, one day it just stopped working. i suspect something wrong with a driver somewhere.

  10. Ryan said on December 1, 2008

    Thank you Ciscomonkey. I’d tried everything else to no avail. Then I found your comment and discovered that I had indeed been using a PNG file as the wallpaper.

  11. tropik said on December 11, 2008

    Thanks, this helped me. I have been trying to figure this out for a while

  12. mrGinipig said on December 15, 2008

    this actualy worked… well done Newboy….. what Newboy was trying to say was
    when you select the web tab you will see a web pages dialog box, in side
    the dialog there are check boxes just make sure they are un checked and
    click ok then apply then ok… wella

  13. Mike said on January 6, 2009

    What if this solution doesn’t work on the target laptop? It worked on a test PC, but not the one where I wanted it to work.

  14. Siddhartha said on January 10, 2009

    Thanks it worked for me

  15. Gia said on January 14, 2009

    That was the best tip ever!!!
    I was desperately seeking help all morning…for HOURS…until I tried your resolution. IT WORKED!!!!!
    You are AWESOME!!!
    Grazie!!!

  16. Mike said on January 22, 2009

    This one fixed it for me when the ones above did not. Thanks.

  17. Anonymous user said on February 14, 2009

    rock on….

    just changing the resolution from 1280×800 to 1280×768 and then back fixed it!

  18. anonymous said on February 23, 2009

    i’ve done EVERYTHING in these comments, and everything online. i even downloaded a few programs to try to fix it and NOTHING HAS WORKED! i have a toshiba tablet laptop and ever since i’ve had the computer i havent been able to fix the icons… but i’m guessing there’s a way. any more ideas????

  19. Angie said on February 28, 2009

    Thank you! That was what finally worked for me. I’d already had a jpg file for a background and had use drop shadows for icons checked. :)

  20. Iffy said on March 5, 2009

    Thanks a bunch newboy. Your fix worked for me too.

  21. solved said on March 8, 2009

    Thank You newboy
    This resolved my issue.
    Dont know why it happen. All I can remember is that I was dragging an Icon , the screen glitched and it was there.

  22. vic said on April 1, 2009

    Iv’e tried every solution on these pages and none
    of them work. Thank You

  23. gaurav said on April 6, 2009

    awesome man ,, this tip worked so well for me. .u saved a lot time for me.. thanks

  24. goku said on April 8, 2009

    Hats off newboy!

  25. Dee said on April 23, 2009

    Doesn’t work for me, eityher.
    :-{

  26. TY said on May 3, 2009

    SICK this is really cool thx

  27. Octavian said on May 5, 2009

    thanks!

  28. Marko said on May 6, 2009

    Thank you for your help! Those icons were driving me crazy!

  29. Mike said on May 18, 2009

    Thanks Newboy!!!!!!!!

  30. BabyBoy said on May 20, 2009

    thank you!!! works great ))))

  31. Alex said on June 10, 2009

    I’ve got the same problem with me icon text and tried the solution and it did not work. No matter what I do it did not work. Any other solution?

  32. anonymous said on June 22, 2009

    LOVE YA!

  33. jonah said on June 27, 2009

    Your idea is not working

  34. Rocky R. said on July 6, 2009

    Weirdness – this happened to my cube neighbor’s desktop – it used the background color for the icon text background. I though he must have turned it off, so I went to the Control Panel, and it’s CHECKED!!! I logged him off and *I* logged in (thinking it might be something funky with Windows) and mine were transparent. Yet when he went back in – he’s still getting a non-transparent background for his icons, even though the Performance settings are set to use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop.

  35. Donna said on July 10, 2009

    Thanks Carolyn, worked for me!

  36. Anonymous said on July 20, 2009

    Thanx a lot. u don’t know how long i search for this ….. problem. i love ya

  37. Anonymous said on July 29, 2009

    it wont work

  38. Anonymous said on August 5, 2009

    I have made sure the “Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop” is checked and I still have the blue background behind the icon text on my desktop. I have also made sure made sure that “Lock Web Items on Desktop” under “Arrange Icons By” is not checked and I have no webpages saved to the desktop. Any help?

  39. Anonymous said on August 5, 2009

    Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!!!! That was the one that finally did it for me!

  40. Anonymous said on August 28, 2009

    thanks guys !!!!!!!. This really works !!!. Once again thanks a lot.

  41. Anonymous said on August 31, 2009

    Thanks so much! After reading Caroline’s instructions, it didn’t change a thing. Thank you SO much newboy! I’m going to favorite this page. :)

  42. ovi said on September 1, 2009

    You r a genius

  43. Anonymous said on September 21, 2009

    Only thing that works is to set “Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer” option in: right click on My computer —> Advanced —> Performance —> Settings, and icons will become transparent

  44. Anonymous said on September 26, 2009

    it works for me…bleh!

  45. Matthew said on September 30, 2009

    Should work for most but i have tried soooooo many things and IDK what i did origionally to crate this problem but now that i have it it sucks so what i do is use my quicklaunch bar at the top of my screen and put all my icons their. All i have on my desktop is my documents and the recycle bin (if i wanted i could just use my start meny for my documents but 2 icons dont bother me and i make the background color as clode as i can to the background itself. Although this is no way to fix it it is a way to deal if you cant fix it (i have tried 4-5 different methods) and cant figure out how to correct this and none of them happens to work for me.
    Although i have had problems with this particular laptop for almost a month now and in that month i have formatted at least 10 times and even did a low level format once and still i have issues. or one issue no matter what at a point my computer just loads and freezes, of course i thought it was a program but restoring my comp to before i uinstalled it and not installling it when formatt it still keeps happening so I dont know how to fix it no one else online i talk to might know either (sorry for the rant but if anyone can help me with this i would be very appreciative if someone has an idea) I have absolutly have no problem with buying more ram (replacing it) or the same with a harddrive, although its a laptop so i am limited to testing only the ram as i have 2 chips and can check with one only then vice versa but I cannot with the harddrive as i have no other computers to hook it up to. anyway if you have an idea post it and if you want here is a temp email addy that will work for a limited time so you can contact me here mailto:/newave3009@temomail.fr

  46. Anonymous said on October 9, 2009

    There are 3 things to check. first make sure your desktop Icons are not locked. Secound make sure in the desktop properties, desktop tab, Custom desktop, Web tab-nothing is check marked. Then go to system settings, advance tab, performance settings, visual effects and make sure “use drop shadows for iconlabels on the desktop” is checked. Be advise when you uncheck items in the web tab, it can uncheck the use drop shadows and that is why you check that last.

  47. OnVideo said on October 26, 2009

    I was downloading a new version of either Direct-X or Active-X and it threw my icons out of whack, eliminating the transparency. I’ve tried your troubleshooting but it still doesn’t work (the download also changed other customized settings,such as screensavers, start windows sound and exit windows sound — everything was returned to defau;t). I got everything back the way I want it — except the transparency. Any other thoughts? Thanks, Harley.

  48. Anonymous said on October 27, 2009

    I went back and tried everything all over again, then saw in the Web Tab of the Desktop Menu portion of Desktop Properties that, indeed, a file was checked. Unchecked it and, bingo, transparency returned. THANK YOU ONE AND ALL.
    Harley

  49. compufix said on November 1, 2009

    Even after all this time this is the perfect solution to the problem.
    I was almost ready to re-install windows.
    Thanx a lot.

  50. Anonymous said on November 7, 2009

    thnks a lot dude you had solved my problem

  51. Ambar said on November 9, 2009

    I finally fixed it once and for all. In the system settings for performance, I just selected the radio button “let windows decide what’s best for my computer”.

    The fact that THAT was what worked kind of leaves me feeling very inadequate and disturbed.

    Cheers.

  52. someone said on November 24, 2009

    T H A N K S
    A
    L O T newboy !

  53. Anonymous said on December 16, 2009

    thank you carolyn. . work very good

  54. Anonymous said on December 20, 2009

    In my computer, this does not work well. But here is my experience.
    Go to Desktop Property>Desktop> Customize Desktop> Click Web Tab> In the Web Pages List Box, Clear all check box and then OK.
    You can do as this message go.
    enjoy all

    hla min swe…..
    moon.gooogle@gmail.com

  55. Anonymous said on January 22, 2010

    You’re the man dude! : )

  56. Anonymous said on February 3, 2010

    Love it. Couldn’t remember the place to do this after I had to do a reinstall, and all my great desktop pics all had that crappy blue text under the few icons I do keep on it. Thanks a trillion!

  57. Ana said on February 16, 2010

    Thank you so much, it helped me a lot! was trying to figure out this problem, and it was confusing for me, but your instructions help. thank you

  58. Anonymous said on March 7, 2010

    None of the above worked for me only this one: Simply modify the registry entry to 0 [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorerForceActiveDesktopOn=0]… then lower your desktop resolution once, which will show the magic, then u may change the resolution back to the previous setting… Njoy…

  59. qchiapetp said on April 1, 2010

    Thank you!

  60. jkorp said on April 3, 2010

    Great! This did the trick for me!

  61. bob said on April 18, 2010

    OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! (:

  62. Anonymous said on April 29, 2010

    it’s not helpfull for me.

  63. Anonymous said on April 30, 2010

    This did not work for my Windows XP computer. Do you have to reboot?

  64. ryan said on May 9, 2010

    thanks! it works! problem solved :-)

  65. Peloose said on May 21, 2010

    Doesn’t work for me

  66. sam said on May 26, 2010

    its really good one

  67. Fernando said on June 1, 2010

    Thank you very much. I have spent all day in trying to make it transparent, till I hit your page.

  68. Fernando said on June 1, 2010

    Thank you very much for your help. I had been trying to make it transparent all day !!!

  69. trisha said on June 10, 2010

    thanx so much buddy…….. u rock……. this thing finally worked for me :)

  70. Animalistix said on June 11, 2010

    Thanks. finally found it.

  71. Anon E. Mouse said on June 11, 2010

    THANK YOU JEBUS!!!!!

  72. Ringofelipe said on June 14, 2010

    yeah!!!! thnx!!!!u rock!!!

  73. mope said on June 15, 2010

    Thanks a million! Been trying to find this forever…

  74. Leizie said on June 19, 2010

    thanks it really help a lot

  75. Mario said on June 19, 2010

    This WORKS… Thanks a million!!!!

  76. Aly said on June 21, 2010

    ty so much, this helped me a lot

  77. Eylül said on June 30, 2010

    this worked for me! thanks a lot..

  78. JD said on July 2, 2010

    that worked! Thanks,

  79. krishnakumar said on August 8, 2010

    superb.. worked for me…

  80. Clinton Worthy said on August 11, 2010

    THIS REALLY WORKED!!!! Nothing else worked but this

  81. Sachinmhadalekar said on September 25, 2010

    thanks newboy realy i love ur comment. god blace u. sachin

  82. Knickjones said on October 5, 2010

    thank you….you rock for this. ive been trying to figure this out for about a week now & it was getting very irritating & i love you

  83. Dhan012 said on October 5, 2010

    For those of you that this doesn’t work for. Make sure that you are using a .JPG file for your background. Personally, I usually use .PNG’s, and ran across this issue. When you use a .JPG or .BMP it seems to work just fine.

  84. Ral said on October 5, 2010

    thank you carolyn, that worked!!!!!

  85. SK said on October 21, 2010

    great… it works

  86. Jim said on November 9, 2010

    New boy You are the Greatest THANKS
    This has been a problem for me off & on for years

  87. Prabhat said on November 10, 2010

    thanx alot……u solved my problem.

  88. artist said on November 29, 2010

    how about if you have an html file as a background would it work?

  89. Gdynia52 said on December 22, 2010

    This worked for me, adding tip from NEWBOY worked like a charm, 3 years was looking for solution, finally can get users with that. Thank you NEWBOY !!!

  90. me said on January 8, 2011

    it works! thanks!

  91. Me said on January 11, 2011

    thanks man!

  92. Cvsdave said on February 25, 2011

    My experience was just the opposite! It didn’t work until I converted the .jpg to a .bmp, and used the .bmp for the wallpaper on a XP Media Center.

  93. Mohl said on March 3, 2011

    Wow I tried everything and your suggestion was the only one that worked
    Thanks Newboy

  94. Daydreamwanderer said on March 30, 2011

    Finally a tip that actually worked! Thanks!!

  95. sumitjain said on March 31, 2011

    thanx.. fixed now
    :-)

  96. Fahimquazi A said on April 3, 2011

    i love u boss thanks for idea u r genies

  97. Khmermx said on April 15, 2011

    Thank you this one works pretty well when all other didnt.

  98. RSO SD Unit said on June 9, 2011

    Thanks buddy. This one worked like a charm.

  99. RSO SD Unit said on June 9, 2011

    Thanks buddy. This one worked like a charm.

  100. Iv said on September 14, 2011

    If the above doesn’t work:
    Right-click on Desktop ->Arrange Icons by ->Lock Web items must be cleared.
    If you have any web content on your desktop, transparency won’t work.
    To check for web content: Display Properties ->Desktop ->Customize
    Desktop ->Web – make sure all checkboxes are clear.

  101. Ajmal said on September 16, 2011

    Thanks

  102. tshiwawa said on January 12, 2012

    Anonymous I LOVE YOU!! you are a genius I unlocked the desctop Icons and gained happiness again :D

 

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