02-07-2008, 11:02 AM
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 | Desi Club Badshah | | |
  Re: ~ A Tip A Day ~
07 February 2008:
Show the Desktop Without Closing Windows I usually have a lot of application windows open, and it's a pain to have to shove windows out of the way to get to a file on the desktop.
There are a bunch of ways to get to your desktop in a flash. First, hold the Windows logo key (which we'll call Winkey, just to be cute) and press D to quickly minimize all open windows. Press Winkey-D again to restore them. Do this many times to give yourself a headache.
But what if your keyboard havey no Winkey? No problemo; just click the Show Desktop button on the Quick Launch toolbar (the little row of tiny buttons on the far left of your Taskbar). Give the button another click to restore the windows.
Want to free up some Taskbar real estate? Eliminate the Quick Launch toolbar buttons you don't use by right-clicking each one and selecting Delete. To really save space, you can banish all the buttons except Show Desktop, and place the shrunken Quick Launch toolbar next to the Windows System Tray on the far right.
Note: If you can't move or resize the Quick Launch toolbar, right-click an empty area in the Taskbar and deselect the "Lock the Taskbar" option. When you have things the way you like them, turn "Lock the Taskbar" back on.
Note: If you don't see the Quick Launch toolbar, right-click an empty area on your Taskbar, and go to Toolbars Quick Launch. If these tricks don't do it for you, right-click an empty area of the Taskbar, and select "Show the Desktop." It'll look like all your windows have been minimized, but they're just hidden; to bring them back, repeat the procedure but select Show Open Windows instead.
Alternatively, to access any files or icons on your desktop (without disturbing your open applications), you can simply open Windows Explorer and highlight the Desktop folder at the top of the folder tree.
Make a Show Desktop Button By default, the Quick Launch toolbar comes with a Show Desktop button, which allows you to quickly minimize all open windows and access stuff on your desktop.
But what if this button accidentally gets deleted?
Unlike most other toolbar buttons, the Show Desktop button isn't a Windows shortcut. Rather, it's a Shell Command File (SCF), which is really just a plain text file containing a special command that Windows understands. To create a new SCF file, open your favorite plain-text editor (or Notepad), and type the following five lines:
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
Save the file as Show Desktop.scf (or any other name, provided that you include the .scf filename extension) anywhere you like, including on the desktop. To have the icon appear on your Quick Launch toolbar, place the file in the \Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch folder. |