Sir…We’re going to need a few coffee’s here. You got time…Right?
If I were to give you a 1,000 piece jigsaw and tell you that the timer is set to 20 seconds…Now GO!
You’d more than likely laugh and throw the box back at me (probably injuring me in the process, but that’s for another blog) and tell me it’s impossible. In fact, that would be impossible for anyone. Nine would be an easier number to achieve right?
When time is short, dealing with a lower number of items is super duper awesomeness.So here’s your prescription from the Technology Doctor. Grab a cup of [insert choice of beverage] and administer one mouthful as required. Let’s get Funk-nical![insert face-palm for awful attempt at creating a new word]
Desktop Shortcuts only do one thing.
And it’s most certainly not making your life easier.
This is a totally irrelevant Funk-nical circle. Yup. I’m thinking this is the new term for Funky Technical.
So you install a new program and there’s a few things that’ll appear on your screen. Mainly the one labelled “Create desktop icon” which is normally a little check box. Without thinking, we normally (like, seriously. Most people) check this box to create a lovely little picture icon on our desktop.
You then feel really happy and go looking for it among the other 50 or so shortcuts.
This is where the fun (did I say fun? I mean challenge) starts.
My Adobe Reader shortcut is most definitely, probably, could be….Somewhere?
So check this out. When your computer starts, you log in (after admiring the Funk-nical background changes on the log in screen. Today, mine was Jupiter) and notice the massive delay in bringing up the collection of desktop shortcuts. There is a reason for this.
Desktop Shortcuts are like coordinates on a map.
You’re standing in the middle of London / New York / Washington DC and you’re holding a map up in front of you. Before you begin anything you need to confirm that each road is called what it is, leads to what it says it leads too and what road sign it should have.
On your computer, Windows has to confirm each desktop icon by checking the shortcut works, what the pretty icon should be and it even needs to remember where it’s last position was.
Pretty intense, right? Imagine having to walk all the way along a 10 mile road in the city center and say “Yup! That phone box is absolutely there!” then walk all the way back to the center only to draw a little phone box on your map.
Windows does the exact same thing only a lot faster, for every single icon on your desktop.
So how do we improve this?
The first step, is to hide all your icons without deleting them. This is done by finding an empty space on your desktop and right clicking to bring up a menu. Highlight View and untick Show Desktop Icons.
As if by magic, your desktop icons have vanished! Now we need another way of seeing those icons. Go ahead and right click the Taskbar (by default, it’s the long bar on the bottom of the screen) and highlight Toolbars then click Desktop.
Now check down by the System Clock where you will see the word Desktop appear with a small double chevron next to it.
Once you click on the double chevron, your desktop icons will appear as a list! Now go ahead and reboot, see if your start times have improved.
Until next time, happy housekeeping!
There can be many other reasons other than desktop icons that slow your computer start times. If this is the case for you, why not get in touch to speak with one of the team.
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