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Have you just downloaded some beautiful wallpaper and find that you can't see it because you have so many desktop icons? Well then, let's...

Clean Up That Desktop!

Here's a way to turn those icons into a toolbar so you can get them off the wallpaper but still have access to them from your desktop .. and anywhere else!

UPDATE: These instructions are for Windows 95, 98, 2000, and ME. If you run Windows XP, you do not need to do this. In XP, simply right click a blank area of your Desktop and choose Arrange Icons By and remove the check from "Show Desktop Icons". This will give you a clean Desktop. Then right click a blank part of your Windows Taskbar (at the bottom of your screen) and choose Toolbars > Desktop. This will give you a toolbar that includes everything that was on your Desktop.

First, RIGHT click on a blank area of your desktop and select "New", then "Folder" and name this folder Desktop Toolbar.
Then, drag all or some of your icons into this folder.

Some icons, like My Computer, Network Neighborhood, etc. may not allow you to move them, but any icons you have created yourself since your installation of Windows should not yell at you when you try to move them. (And you CAN make shortcuts in this folder to the ones you can't move.)

Some icons will try to create shortcuts in your folder instead of actually moving the icon. For these, just RIGHT click when you drag. Then, when you release your right mouse button, select "Move Here".

Now, drag this folder to the far right edge of your screen, so part of it is actually off screen and let go of your mouse button.
Voila! There's all your icons which you can scroll through to find what you want and your beautiful wallpaper is no longer cluttered up with icons.
You can also drag this folder to the left or top of your screen and achieve the same effect.

You will notice the folder you made is still on your desktop. Unfortunately, there's no way to get rid of it without deleting all its contents, so DON'T delete it.

See a screenshot of my desktop BEFORE I did this

See a screenshot of my desktop AFTER I did this

Want to make it even less intrusive? Right click on a blank area of this new toolbar and check out your choices. I ended up moving mine to the top of my screen and choosing "View" and "Small Icons" from this right click menu. Then I moved my cursor to the bottom edge of this toolbar and dragged down until the toolbar showed all of my icons. Then I chose "Auto hide" and "Always on Top" from the right click menu. Now my desktop looks like this:

But, if I move my mouse pointer to the top of my screen, my desktop looks like this:

And, because I selected "Always on Top", I can move my mouse pointer to the top of my screen in any program and I have access to all my desktop icons. No more need to minimize programs to get back to the desktop, Now, THAT'S handy!!

Try different variations until you find the one YOU like!! And, as my friend "geekette" suggests, "... when using the drop down list created when using a top-docked tool bar .... right click on the list and choose "sort by name" to get them in alphabetical order ...." THANKS geekette!!