Vista - Hiding some desktop shortcut icons and not others?

Any such software?

If you mean the virtual ones which the system places there, such as Computer, Recycle, Bin, etc, you can show/hide them by right-clicking the desktop, click Personalize, then click "Change desktop icons" in the left column.

If you mean the shortcuts (with an arrow overlay) made by yourself or program installers, you could either just delete them, or if you want to keep them for possible return later, open an Explorer window and drag them off the desktop into your own storage folder.

> If you mean the shortcuts (with an arrow overlay) made by yourself or program installers...

Yes, those are the ones I mean. I want them all & don't want to delete them. Out of the 100+ on my desktop I want to be able to hide all but a few, but still have one click access to display them. Yes, I know that I could group them and have the ones I use all the time in a corner or something, but just want to know if can be done my way.

Thanks for reply.

Hello Jbt,

You could set the shortcuts you want hidden by checking Hide in it's Properties. This tutorial will help show you how to if needed.

Hidden Files and Folders

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi jbt,

try this ...
Create a folder on the desktop called "My Apps" or something Similar
drag your application shortcuts that you don't want all the time into the folder

Drag the folder to the extreme left of the screen (or top or right if you dont use sidebar) and release you have just created a toolbar. if you right click on this new toolbar you can choose auto hide and the toolbar will disappear.

so now you have your desktop showing just the icons you use all the time if you need the others you can move your cursor to the left edge and there are your icons

you can size the toolbar if you need and you can choose to hide names if you want

hope this helps

Toolbar for the Desktop

I believe TweakUI used to be allow you to choose which icons to hide. Not sure if its available for vista. Not sure if Totalidea Software :: Product :: Tweak Windows Vista - Vista Tweaks - TweakVI - Tweak-VI - Tweak-Vista - TweakVista - TweakXP - Tweak-XP - Tweak XP - TweakUI - Outlook Backup - Outlook Notes - FireTune has the same feature as its made by a different company.


edit: lol at page title.

Thanks all for the replies.

It might be tomorrow before I can try them. The folder on the desktop looks like something I understand at least.

I would think others besides me would want just such a setup on their work stations. Snoopy eyes don't have to know all your business.

Thanks again,

jbt

Nigel's folder solution works quite satisfactorily.

Thanks much!

@barman58 that's very cool. As it is I have my desktop organized by having a vertical row of folders for various app categories. I did a variation on your theme by dragging several of these folders into a new folder, then doing New Toolbar on the Taskbar and selecting this folder. Now that toolbar is a popup vertical menu on the right next to the system tray. Autohide is unnerving to me so this way I just click the '>>' to get the menu and avoid reaching over to the left edge of the screen for most stuff.