G73JW - Desktop Icons will not stay hidden.

[jwilfong]

Right Click desktop, select 'View', then uncheck 'Show Desktop Icons'.

Requires doing it twice to take! Icons finally hide. Now reboot and they are back.

Why does it take twice to take affect? Any ideas on keeping the selection persistent between boots?

Thanks,
John

[xeromist]

Interesting. It sounds like it's preserving the setting because you have to check it twice but for some reason it's not being read when you boot. What happens if you selectively try to disable only certain icons like hiding everything but the recycle bin or something like that?

[jwilfong]

I don't know how to selectively hide the icons. The menu selection appears to be all or nothing. I also noticed that 'Auto Arrange Icons' and 'Align Icons to Grid' are non-selectable. I don't have this problem with any of the other WIn7 installations I have on other computers. On my G73JW I also have another user set up. The problem does not occur on this user.

-- John

[xeromist]

Selectively hiding icons is something I believe is available through the display properties. I'm not on a win 7 machine right now but on XP there is a button "Customize Desktop" on the Desktop tab of Display Properties that allows you to selectively disable system icons. The reason that I mentioned this is because it could be more than just that one setting that is messed up on your current profile.

TBH, I'm not sure how to completely fix this problem. We can keep trying things but probably the most expedient solution would be to re-create the user if there isn't too much you'd need to redo. As long as your applications were installed "for all users" and you only have a few visual customizations it shouldn't be hard to do.

[MarkS]

Right Click desktop, select 'View', then uncheck 'Show Desktop Icons'.

Requires doing it twice to take! Icons finally hide. Now reboot and they are back.

Why does it take twice to take affect? Any ideas on keeping the selection persistent between boots?

Thanks,
John

It shouldn't take twice for it to take effect, and I can't reproduce that one.

To get it to persist across sessions I think you need to save the current desktop "theme".

[jwilfong]

@ZeroMist: OK, I thought you meant any icon. I know you can hide system icons. I will not be able to try this till Thurs as I'm heading out of town. The account it is doing this to is my administrator account. If I can't solve it I will create another account as suggested. I usually do install applications as all users so this will not be a problem plus most of my work is done on a virtual desktop that I remote in to.

@MarkS: Saving the theme works between reboots but only 2-3 times then it's back to showing the icons.

--John