Can I hide/unhide all desktop icons easily?

[Relztrah]

I found a nice year-view 2009 calendar here (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102851591033.aspx?CategoryID=CT102774121033) which I saved and then selected only the months (without the title, toolbars, row and column numbers, etc.), copied and pasted into Paint and made it my desktop background. OK, I'm a little neurotic already thinking about 2009 but it's a slow day at work and Outlook doesn't have this year-view calendar. At least Outlook 2003, doesn't although later versions might. The other nice thing about this year-view calendar is that I can open it with Excel 2003 which I'm also using.

So now I have a nice 2009 full year calendar as my desktop but my icons are of course covering up much of it. Is there a simple way--as in one mouse click--that I can hide all my desktop icons just long enough to see the calendar, and then click and they're back?

Hey, I'm so impressed with my ingenuity that if somebody tells me how to save my desktop as a file I'll post it.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I put a shortcut to My Desktop in my taskbar and display as webpage so I have no icons whatsoever on my desktop. You can put a picture, screensaver etc if you wish.

As far as saving as a file, well, your desktop IS a file in Windows. You can put it to your taskbar in at least 2 ways in XP:

1
Right click your taskbar and put a check next to Desktop. This will have a forward arrow that acts like a drop down menu for your desktop files.

2
Go to C: (if C: is your installation), Documents and settings\(your computer's name or user). You should see a folder named Desktop. Right click on it and choose copy. Paste it to your desktop and then drag it to your QuickLaunch bar. This way you will see a folder icon in the taskbar and the desktop will open rather than act as a drop down menu.

Hope this helps! :)

[Relztrah]

Well, I guess I've done it that way. From the desktop I right click and select Arrange Icons By and uncheck Show Desktop Icons. This gets rid of my icons. Then I created the Desktop shortcut on my Taskbar as you mentioned. It's under Toolbars although it's really not a toolbar.

In the process I realized that the other simple way to do this is right click on my desktop, Arrange Icons By and uncheck Show Desktop Icons. Then go back and check it when I want my icons back. This isn't one mouse click, but still only two.

Is there any advantage to saving my calendar as a webpage rather than just standard .jpg wallpaper? I think either of them will work, right?

[johnny_quest]

how about creating a blank image the exact size of your display, shrink the photo a little and place it to the far right of the image, that way your icons will be out of the way of the image...

unless you have lots of icons...

[Relztrah]

I have lots of icons. And since the calendar is for the whole year, I pretty much need the whole screen to view it easily.