System Maintenance: Clean Desktop

This article is one in a series of articles on Basic System Maintenance.  In these articles, HL not only covers what to maintain, but why and how.

Henry David Thoreau  once wrote, “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”  It’s advice that can not only make you feel better, but actually improve the performance of your system.

You can understand see what might get someone into this habit.  Everything one needs is handy.  Of course, that's the problem - everything is.  A desktop like this can be harder to sift through than a Calculus text on a Friday night (been there).  It's like a game of "Where's Waldo?"

This is bad Feng Shui folks - at least that's what Jack, our Feng Shui expert tells us (ok, he's a student - we think....ok, FINE - Jack is a cat - but he promises us he "knows the Feng Shui").  Each little icon represent a reminder, and more often than not, a reminder carries just a bit of negative energy.  A whole desktop full staring you back in the face is like a bad day that hasn't even started - yet. 

Luckily, the Manta doesn't follow Feng Shui, and is thus immune (we made him make a saving throw just to be sure).  The Manta is a follower of the Way of  the Scooby.  Unfortunately, a cluttered desktop is bad Scooby as well.  Scooby says. “One should never have more than ten responsibilities at one time.  Each icon represents a responsibility.  Thus, one should limit oneself to no more than ten icons on the desktop.”

However you want to think about it, each icon is a quiet call for attention.  That's the point of the desktop.  It visually represents the "starting point" of your computing experience.  It actually can have an affect on how you feel.  The cleaner, the better.

Of course, we are well aware that there are those of you that are thinking, "Yeah - whatever - HL has been taken over by hippie geeks."

For you folks, did we mention that a cluttered desktop can have an impact on performance?  Oh yeah - now we have your attention.  We bring the promise of a happier life and get "crickets" until we mention you might get a few more FPS as well.  We see how your are.

Make no mistake, a cluttered desktop can affect performance.

Your desktop is a great place for a pretty picture and a few often used shortcuts or folders.  It’s not an ideal place for programs and data to be stored.  It affects your boot up time and sucks up resources.  Using the space as a dropzone or testing area for active documents and programs can cause temporary files to be deposited on it.  On rare occasions, these file are difficult to delete.  Startup programs on the desktop, especially those that write to a file on the desktop, are a real big no-no.  These programs can cause the desktop to refresh often - and that can cause your next gaming session to drop back to the desktop. Just to put a few numbers to this, we tested Manta's "Toy Box" after a hard month of software testing (in which he used his Desktop as a work space), and then we retested after a good cleaning.

The "Toy Box"	Before	After
Boot Time (s)	99	73
Shutdown Time (s)	35	34
Explorer.exe (MB)	22.8	22.3
Page File size (MB)	247	237
RAM in use (MB)	429	383

As you can see, the boot time is reduced by over 20 seconds.  RAM use is down, although we have to note that we don't always see a reduction in RAM usage and the Manta's system was an extreme case.  The explorer.exe process is basically unchanged (that process can vary by 1MB from minute to minute).  These gains are actually better than what you can expect from a good disk defrag.  Will this get you more frames per second in your favorite game?  It may, although making noticeable improvements often requires a combination things (defrag, clean desktop, reducing your startup programs, etc...)

And, what "feels" better?  You tell us.

There are other advantages as well.  When it comes time to backup the system, a well organized drive is far easier to backup (especially if multiple backup media is required.  We'll get into data and system backups in the near future.

'Till then, happy computing and may the Scooby ride your network!

ADDENDUM:  How do I clean my desktop?

It may sound like a silly question, but if your desktop is seriously packed, it can be a daunting task.  Just take it step by step:

1. Delete unused shortcuts (move them to the recycle bin).  This should give you some space to work in and you can always make new shortcuts.
2. Make a few folders (fewer than 5) and name them in a way that makes sense to you (ie. "test area").  Don't try to cover all the bases - just a few folders to start with.
3. Move icons into appropriate folders.  If you come across one you don't have a folder for, ignore it for now.  If you come across things you know you don't want - move them to the recycle bin.
4. After you have made your first pass, make a few more folders (if needed) and repeat the process until you have fewer than a dozen icons and folders combined on the desktop.
5. Then, right click on the desktop and "Arrange by" name (or anything will do).  This will bring icons which may be sitting off your screen back into a visible area.  You can then deal with them.
6. If you have unremovable files on your desktop, hit our forums and just ask - there are a few reasons this can happen and we can help you out.
7. Empty the recycle bin (we suggest a quick check of what is inside it first - just in case something got tossed that you may need)