# Does a messy desktop affect windows performance?



## natr0n (Nov 5, 2014)

I was wondering about this for a while.


The bigger screens get the more messy we get it seems....links, files, folders, pics, etc. scattered all over our desktops.


I currently have 9.30gb of crap on my desktop...12,373 Files, 1,058 Folders


Made a vote thing tell me your experience.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Nov 5, 2014)

Need a third category: Depends on how much RAM you have.


----------



## Nosada (Nov 5, 2014)

Older, slower PC's with eleventybillion icons/files/folders on the desktop are a good indication of this. On some PC's with physical platters, you hear the machine creaking and groaning while every one of those is redrawn after closing a program.

Yes, they lower performance, but many new machines are just so fast it's barely noticeable.


----------



## Luka KLLP (Nov 5, 2014)

I have quite an old PC, and when I cleaned my desktop up I really noticed the difference, but I don't know about newer PC's


----------



## rtwjunkie (Nov 5, 2014)

LOL, I see you got humorous!  Seriously, If you have 8 GB and below, yes, it can bog down.  Shortcuts not so much, but if you keep actual files, folders etc on desltop, it's my understanding that they are all open.  And it's been my experience with people at work as well.  So, I only keep shortcuts, mostly to either games or frequently used programs.

For me, at this point, with 16 Gigs, it shouldn't matter anymore, but I'm still careful about how much is open at once.


----------



## droopyRO (Nov 5, 2014)

This should answer your question, if you are in a hurry skip to 7:30


----------



## Drone (Nov 5, 2014)

Nosada said:


> Older, slower PC's with eleventybillion icons/files/folders on the desktop are a good indication of this. On some PC's with physical platters, you hear the machine creaking and groaning while every one of those is redrawn after closing a program.
> 
> Yes, they lower performance, but many new machines are just so fast it's barely noticeable.




Concur. Lots of icons and some heavy wallpaper (especially with lots of colors) can slow things down


----------



## natr0n (Nov 5, 2014)

droopyRO said:


> This should answer your question, if you are in a hurry skip to 7:30




lol that's great.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Nov 5, 2014)

rtwjunkie said:


> LOL, I see you got humorous!  Seriously, If you have 8 GB and below, yes, it can bog down.  Shortcuts not so much, but if you keep actual files, folders etc on desltop, it's my understanding thathtey are all open.  And it's been my experience with people at work as well.  So, I only keep shortcuts, mostly to either games or frequently used programs.
> 
> Still, this point, with 16 Gigs, it shouldn't matter anymore, but I'm still careful about how much is open at once.



Good policy, more on a desktop the more its gotta draw on there.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Nov 5, 2014)

eidairaman1 said:


> Good policy, more on a desktop the more its gotta draw on there.


 
I've got one guy in a cube near me that wonders why it takes his computer over ten minutes to boot up, and why IE takes 30 seconds to change pages.  His whole desktop is covered in FOLDERS....that's right folders, not shortcuts.  It's a wonder the thing hasn't started laughing hysterically and turned off in apuff of smoke!

Finally, after I harrassed him for weeks, he moved most of it to an actual HDD, and he was so excited that he had free RAM!


----------



## EarthDog (Nov 5, 2014)

Your desktop is explorer.exe. And while the more icons you have the more it has to draw, its just that, icons/shortcuts. Not gaming textures, not complicated textures, not AA. icons. With that, I voted no. 

Those icons are shortcuts go to an 'actual hard drive' already.

The whirring and grinding on the HDD after making adjustments would be it reindexing I would imagine.


----------



## natr0n (Nov 5, 2014)

Cleaned up desktop now 19mb and 12 files...dumped stuff on a folder elsewhere

Feels a bit snappier.


----------



## EarthDog (Nov 5, 2014)

LOL, placebo.


----------



## droopyRO (Nov 5, 2014)

On a serious note, i dont think it affects it, unless you use .gif as a wallpaper , saving files/folders on your desktop (unless that desktop is a location on a network should not interfere with performance). I have not tested it, as i always keep it simple, my desktop has six shortcuts ATM.


----------



## XSI (Nov 5, 2014)

if you run out of hdd space in OS HDD and you have large files in desktop cleaning them or moving to other drive could help. but i voted no.


----------



## xBruce88x (Nov 5, 2014)

I voted for "YES" and here's why...

for most things its not an issue, say folder icons and generic system icons, but when you have several custom programs, each with their own icons, it can eventually slow down the system if its all loading from a standard HDD. However, I have gotten around this issue by simply hiding all icons on the desktop, and creating a small start menu of sorts on the task bar simply called Desktop along with another for "apps" and one for games.

This was a bigger issue back in the days on win9x/me/2k and xp, b/c of the way it handled everything with direct draw or w/e. Doesn't seem quite as big an issue with Win7/vista until you start to get a hard drive that develops issues or is just simply too slow at start up. I've had several boot-ups where i've had to wait for all of the icons to load on the desktop one at a time, though that's less of an issue now that I have an SSD, though it still depends on where the shortcuts point. For example, you could have all your programs on a different, slower drive and that's where the OS would have to load the data from to display the icon. so sometimes i still have to wait on certain icons, but its a very very short wait now.

does it affect over all system performance? no maybe not, since the icon issue is the same if you open a folder full of icons, but it can make it seem slower since the desktop is the first thing you see and work with the most (depending on how you multitask)

but really i guess this is a question of "does having more crap on my computer slow it down?".

edit: id also like to point out most modern video cards have an even lower priority for direct draw now... since its all 3d and cuda like processing for most apps/programs.

also, quick view of my desktop...


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Nov 5, 2014)

Vista and newer (Windows NT 6.#) it shouldn't matter because DirectDraw (hardware render) is responsible for rendering the UI and it caches icons.  XP and older (Windows NT 5.#) desktop clutter could slow it down because the desktop is software rendered.


----------



## Black.Raven (Nov 5, 2014)

should not matter that much. but since I stored the desktop on my data drive, it loads all the icons slower. so its just how fast you want your files that are on your desktop. the windows start menu should work fine. imo


----------



## Sasqui (Nov 5, 2014)

natr0n said:


> I was wondering about this for a while.
> The bigger screens get the more messy we get it seems....links, files, folders, pics, etc. scattered all over our desktops.
> I currently have 9.30gb of crap on my desktop...*12,373 Files, 1,058 Folders*
> Made a vote thing tell me your experience.



I anything, it'd slow _*me *_down to have a desktop that looked like this:


----------



## micropage7 (Nov 6, 2014)

if you put folder on desktop, it may affect
why dont you put your files on separated drive


----------



## bhaalkc (Nov 6, 2014)

if you have SSD drive, you dont have to worry about messy desktop.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Nov 6, 2014)

I still feel that no matter WHAT hardware device is rendering your icons and folders, if it's on your desktop, it still has to be loaded in RAM.  This is especially significant for those who have actual FOLDERS (not shortcuts)on their desktop, full of files and documents.  Here at work, we have a paltry 2GB of RAM.  My friend who had his desktop full of folders, was using 1.7 GB of RAM.  When he moved it all off the desktop to an actual drive, his RAM usage dropped to a more reasonable 1.2GB.  So yeah, it's going to slow you down, because if the RAM is full, you're going to be using the slow page file ALOT.


----------



## EarthDog (Nov 6, 2014)

If his ram is full, sure... big giant if though considering he has 8GB...


----------



## Mussels (Nov 6, 2014)

No, the icons etc on your desktop do not slow it down.


Lots of garbage on your C: drive fragmented, is what slows it down. simple as that - defrag, or do what i do and put desktop and my docs on a seperate physical drive and defrag it often.


----------



## Jignesh Patel (Dec 5, 2014)

Clear unnecessary stuff from desktop and use minimum icons on desktop. This icons directly use your RAM.


----------

