how to clear desktop?

[jjoel]

i have windows xp home edition on my laptop, and i want to know how i could make my desktop perfectly blank with no icons at all. i'd like to move my recycle bin and my internet explorer icon to my quick launch so i have a very clean looking desktop. is this possible to do? just wondering if ya'll could help me! thanks

jjoel

[Mark Miller]

Hi JJoel,
As far as I understand it you can get rid of everything except the recycle bin. On a new install [not from oem] the only thing on your screen is the recycle bin, lower right corner, and your taskbar. You can right click start menu and auto hide task bar but I don,t think you can rid of recycle bin. any of the other icons you can right click and delete. I am not sure but the power toys for XP might be able to help with all of this. Check the MS home page and follow links for tweak ui.
Hope this helps
Mark After re-reading your post I don't think you can move the bin to taskbar,but explorer for sure as I do that also.

[YODA74]

You can choose "hide all Icons on desktop" OR Drag the sucker to your shortcuts menu lock tool bar and delete the desk icon
OR There is a registry hack here

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article05-013

[shanmuga]

1.Just drag the Recycle bin icon & the IE icon on the desktop to the quick launch bar, that will create the short cuts to recycle bin &IE.

2.Right click on the desktop,highlight arrange icons by and uncheck show desktop icons.

3.IE icon(shortcut) on the desktop may be deleted,just like anyother shortcut,though the same is not possible with recycle bin.

Hope this helps, JJoel

[YODA74]

I new I did this once before so I did it again just to make sure follow this it should work for you to:
Go to START > RUN

Type GPEDIT.MSC

Navagate to USER CONFIGURATION >ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATES >Click on DESKTOP,

On the right hand plane find " Remove Recycle Bin icon on the sktop " , double left click on it to ENABLE it.

And if that doesn't get it this WILL BE CAREFUL WITH THIS ONE
Delete this Key and reboot
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}" and restart. When you restart, the Recycle Bin is no longer on the desktop. When you delete stuff, it still prompts to send it to the Recycle Bin, as always. To fully delete something, just delete it from C:\Recycled. To view this folder, you have to have everything set to be seen, including hidden folders and procted OS files and all that.

Of course you could always get TweekUI and MS Powertoys > TweakUI > Desktop Uncheck Recycle Bin....Any other ways you want to learn how to get rid of it??