If you’re like me, you like a really clean desktop. We’re talking minimalist. Here’s how to hide your desktop icons for that squeaky-clean look. With all your functions available through the search (under the Start orb), or further into the Start menu, why bother with pretty little pictures cluttering up your desktop.
If you are a keyboard commando, then you’ll probably have already discovered the glory of simply pressing the Windows key, and typing directly in the search box the name of the program you want to run. Really cool stuff. So, to get rid of those pesky icons, the first thing you’ll want to do is open the registry editor.
- Press your Windows key and type the word regedit, then press enter.
- If Windows UAC prompts you if you want to continue, select the affirmative.
- Once in the registry editor, navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/ExplorerIf the key is not already present, create it. - Double click the Binary Value called No Desktop
- if it is not there, you can create yourself, by right clicking and choosing New-> Binary Value.
- After you have opened the value (NoDesktop), enter the value 01 00 00 00 (Windows will add the spaces).
- Click Ok, exit the registry editor, and reboot
After the reboot, you’ll have a completely clean desktop. To reverse the process, and bring everything back, simply edit the same registry key, but change the value to 00 00 00 00