All about your Computer Connection: Easy Steps to Having a Clean Computer Desktop

It seems that wherever you go online, when you want to download and save a file, they want you to save it to your desktop. The main reason they say this is so that you can easily find it. Over time this will become a big problem for you. Your computer has memory called RAM which is physically chips inside your computer. This type of memory is considered short term. You open an application and it goes into RAM. You close the application and it exits the RAM.

The problem you have is that the desktop takes up RAM. The more files on your desktop, the more RAM is taken up. This slows down the computer and sooner or later you will run out of resources and get error messages that say Virtual memory too low. Not that files on your desktop is the only reason for that error, but it contributes to it.

You have to think of the desktop as a temporary storage area. Once you download the file, install the program or read the file, then delete it off of your desktop. It is OK to have shortcuts on the desktop, but you want to keep it as clean as possible.

What do I do if I want to save the files on my desktop?
The best thing to do is to create a folder and put everything into that folder. Then, you put a shortcut to the folder on the desktop. Below are the steps to do this:

1. Double click on the My Computer icon. You may also click on the Start menu and double click on My Computer icon in the menu that opens.

2. Double click on the Drive C: icon and a list of folders and files will be displayed.

3. Click on the File menu, which is located at the top left of the screen, and select New menu option, then select Folder.

4. While the folder is highlighted type in Desktop Items and then click somewhere else on the screen. You now have a folder called Desktop Items.

5. The next step is to use your mouse and click on the Desktop Items folder icon with the right mouse button. Select the Send to menu option, then create desktop shortcut. There will be a folder icon now on your desktop called Desktop Items.

6. Now you can click and drag the files to the Desktop Items folder. Click on the icon with the right mouse button and drag the icon so that the folder Desktop Items is highlighted, release the mouse button and select the Move menu option. The file is now in the folder and not taking up RAM memory.

7. Do step 6 with all of the files that you downloaded or saved to your desktop.

8. To see the files in the Desktop Items folder double click on the folder.

9. The next time you save a file off of the Internet just save the file in the Desktop Items folder. You can also still save it to the desktop and drag the file into the Desktop Items folder.

I hope this article helped you in getting your desktop more organized. Saving memory space

is key to having a computer running more efficiently. Follow the steps above and organize your desktop now. The first time is always the hardest, but after that first time it does get easier.