-=PCTechTalk=- Re: odd icon on desktop

This most likely happened because you created/edited a document that was 
stored on your desktop (not where documents belong,) however some people 
feel the need to either create a new document on the desktop or they 
drag it from say an email to the desktop to make it easily accessible. 
This is not a good practice, all documents and other user files should 
be kept in an appropriate directory separate from the operating system. 
Some people actually use the My Documents folder.

Bottom line, if you create/store a document on the desktop, it lives in 
the desktop folder. When you open / edit that document some programs 
create a 'lock' file, some programs create backup files automatically, 
some programs create lots of new files anytime you open a file for 
whatever purpose, the bottom line here is all those 'extra' files are 
created in the same directory you opened the original document from, if 
that was your desktop then all those 'extra' files will get icons on 
your desktop for as long as they exist.

You might ask why this happens, windows has a folder called 'Desktop' 
where it keeps icons for every item on your desktop, these are normally 
just link icons that point to the actual file/program to run which is 
located in another directory. (The more stuff  in the desktop directory 
the longer it takes to boot up and the longer it takes to refresh your 
desktop.)

-Jim-


Liz Zoob wrote:

>Hello, 
>I'm new to this group, and I hope you all answer software questions as well as 
>hardware ones. 
>
>I wonder if anyone else has had this weird thing occur (I have Windows XP Pro).
>
>Occasionally, after doing some unknown task, an odd item appears on my 
>desktop. It has a generic icon under which is the tilde ~. Under Properties it 
>has Type: File, Origin: Desktop, Size: 244 kb (maybe that's the size of the 
>icon itself). 
>
>When I double click on it, no program is slated to open it, of course, so I 
>just delete it. But I am curious to know if others have had this. I haven't 
>identified any pattern, except that I believe it happens after I have read 
>some document on the web.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Liz
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