Arranging Desktop Icons

As you discover, you have many ways to customize the Windows 7 desktop. But if you just want to make some quick, minor changes to your desktop icons, right-click the desktop to view its shortcut menu. Items on the menu that have a little arrow to the right show submenus. For example, if you right-click the desktop and point to View on the menu, you see the View menu, as shown in picture.

The final item on the View menu, Show Desktop Items, needs to be selected (checked) for the icons to show at all. If no checkmark appears next to that item, click that item. The menu closes and the icons appear on the desktop. When you need to see the menu again, just right-click the desktop again. The top three items on the menu, Large Icons, Medium Icons, and Small Icons, control the size of the icons. Click any option to see its effect. If you don’t like the result, right-click the desktop again, choose View, and choose a different size.

The Sort By option on the desktop shortcut menu lets you arrange desktop icons alphabetically by Name, by Size, by Type, or by Date Modi?ed. However, no matter how you choose to sort icons, the built-in icons are sorted separately from those you create. Custom shortcut icons you create yourself are listed after the built-in icons. So if you sort by name, the built-in icons are listed alphabetically first. Then any shortcut icons you created are alphabetized after those. If you sort in reverse order, however (choose Sort, by Name twice), the custom items display first, followed by the built-in icons.