Aren't you tired of scanning your desktop, trying to find the icon you need amid the clutter you've allowed to accumulate? Here's a way to clean up the clutter and still have access to all the applications, folders, shortcuts, and other icons on your desktop. The trick is to hide the existing icons but make them accessible through a desktop toolbar. To do this, you'll need Windows 95 with IE's Desktop Update feature installed, or Windows 98 or later.

First, make the existing icons invisible. In Windows 95, double-click My Computer and then choose View-Folder Options. Click the View tab, then scroll down and check Hide icons when desktop is viewed as Web page under Visual Settings. In Windows 98, right-click the desktop and choose Properties. Click the Effects tab and check Hide icons when desktop is viewed as Web page. In either version of Windows, you'll have to view the desktop as a Web page to make the invisibility take effect. (If you haven't already done so, right-click the desktop and choose Properties. Make sure there's a checkmark by View my Active Desktop as a Web page. Then click OK.) Unfortunately, Windows 2000 doesn't allow you to hide your desktop icons. To achieve that, you'll need an application that has this capability, such as WallMaster Pro, a complete wallpaper management utility available on our cover CD or from www.tropicalwares.com.

The desktop looks cleaner, but now you need access to the items that used to be there. Right-click an empty area of the Windows taskbar and choose Toolbars-Desktop. You should now have a new toolbar on your taskbar with the familiar icons.

If the new toolbar crowds your taskbar, position the pointer over the double lines near the toolbar name and either drag it to the desktop (for a floating toolbar) or to another available edge of the screen.

Note: Before you attempt this tip, be sure to minimise all your running applications so you'll have access to your desktop. I find that minimising to a vertical edge works best, as the toolbar icons align vertically the way your desktop icons used to.

Next, I recommend you right-click the toolbar title Desktop and choose View-Small to make the icons fit more comfortably on the toolbar without the need to scroll (Windows 98 or Internet Explorer 4) or use the >> menu to get the extra items (Windows 98 SE or Internet Explorer 5). If you need more room, you can right-click and uncheck Show Title.

Feel free to set other desktop and taskbar attributes, such as Always on Top, AutoHide or both. Note that you can drag and drop icons within the taskbar to suit your style, but you can't move system icons like My Computer and the Recycle Bin. By reducing your icons to a single column (or a single row) of buttons, you make it easier to scan for whatever item you need.

Note that you can still drop items on the desktop; they'll simply appear on the toolbar rather than on the desktop itself.

Scott Dunn