Kill desktop clutter
Let's play a fun game. Take note of your Windows desktop. Now count how many shortcut icons are on it. If there are more than 20 icons, you need a new system.
Allow me to direct your attention to Fences for XP, Vista, and Windows 7. This freeware app helps you create flexible boxes, or "fences" on your desktop that help you cleanly organize your shortcuts. You can rename these fences easily, and drag and drop shortcuts in and out of them.
The free Fences 1.0 is a unique desktop enhancement app because more than adding style and sheen to your work space, which it does, it's also straight-up practical. At a little larger than 8.6MB, it's also smaller than many other enhancement apps, including Fences' publisher's own CursorFX. Watch our Fences video for a walk-through of all the features.
In other Windows news this week, AVG Technologies releases an update to its popular AVG Free antivirus app, and we show you how to remove files attached to messages in Outlook, Thunderbird, and Yahoo Mail.
Jessica Dolcourt reviews the latest and greatest smartphone apps, in addition to a healthy dose of Windows software. E-mail Jessica and follow her on Twitter. 
I have XP though, but you can always put them in folders and put those folders on the toolbar too.
Then I just pop up the menu with shortcuts and use whichever shortcut I need.
One of the neatest things I ever let Windows itself do, too bad I found out after many years.
http://www.spacejock.com/yLaunch.html
Create a new folder in your Documents called something like 'Apps' or 'Games' and then right-click your toolbar (bottom of screen on Windows) and in the menu goto 'Toolbars' then 'New Toolbar' and locate the folder you just made and select it and it will turn up on the toolbar near your clock.
Now right-click on the folder that just appeared on the toolbar and select 'Open Folder', now drag the icons off your desktop into that folder and close the folder and your done, now all you have to do is click the arrows next to the folder name and your shortcuts will pop-up :)
Bette
And as it turns out, even though I selected the option to make my desktop as it was before I installed Fences, it did not. I currently have a mess of duplicate icons on my desktop that I will have to go in manually and delete.
It's supposed to be compatable with Vista. Does that include 64 bit Vista? I'm using Vista Ultimate 64 bit.
(If you have more than 20 shortcuts, You need a new system....) What kind of stupid adivse is that.?
Ho, no.! I have 21 shortcuts, I need to go and spend $$$$$$ for windows 7 and a new PC.....
People tend to create a short-cut for just about anything they do on their pc's, even for web-pages for an easy access.
She's just pusshing for window 7 and some a % commision.
It seems to me that Microsoft is one of the big paid sponsor of Cnet.
What's the point of an empty desktop...?
[CNET editor's note: Personal attacks deleted.]
I understand that publicity helps to finance free services, but I keep serching all the time which is very annoying!
Yes, you do need glasses. First, there is nothing confusing. Second, there is NO download button for any such "registry mechanic", as you seem to think there is. Third, "Kill desktop clutter" is the name of the mini-article, NOT the name of the application (if you had read the comments left by various people, including mine, then you would have obviously known this, which tells me you didn't actually read, or, just further proof of needing new/stronger glasses). Fourth, obviously, you didn't really search all that hard, because, if you had, then you would have understood everything I said in my first three points.
Next time, try reading completely before making comments that don't make any sense. Well, either that, or quite being a nOOb and/or idiot, as I can't say which is more applicable in this situation.
- by 68Panther October 21, 2009 3:39 PM PDT
- @ mrmanfam
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- by nohelpno1 October 22, 2009 6:42 PM PDT
- I only have 25 years working with computers & I totally agree with 68Panther.
- Like this
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(25 Comments)I wish I had some good advice to give you, but, unfortunately, I don't. From past experience, cnet has been great for downloadable apps, at least when it comes to apps from primary players in the software industry, but when it comes to smaller companies, or, even worse, apps from individuals, my "luck" has been about the same as everyone else who has been complaining about problems. In others words, apps from these small companies & individuals should be avoided at (almost) all costs. In many cases, all one has to do is one of the follows steps, in their listed order: uninstall the app, perform a System Restore from an earlier restore point (I HIGHLY suggest manually creating a restore point prior to installing ANY new software).
Unfortunately, not even these two steps resolves the problem in every case, and as such, as I had to do once before from a downloaded cnet app, I had to do a complete restore from a backup. Thankfully, the most recent backup I had performed, using ShadowProtect Desktop (I also recommend Acronis TrueImage to my customers, as these are the two best backup apps), had only been done a few days earlier, and I only had to re-install two programs (although, with one being a game, I also lost my game save data, so had to restart game).
The point is, at the absolute minimum, I suggest everyone manually create a Windows Restore Point prior to installing ANY new software, and, better yet, perform weekly system backups. Best recommendation is to do a complete backup the beginning of each month, and incremental backups each week. At the beginning of a new month, perform a new complete backup, with, again, incremental backups each week. At the end of the second month, delete all backup data from the first month, and continue. At the end of the third month, delete all backup data from the second month, and so forth. Just something I've learned in my 30 years worth of working with computers.
One thing my computer programmer instructor told us, if you don't learn anything else
backup backup backup.
I had a program I worked on for a little over 2 years & when my system crashed the first 2 backups failed
thank goodness for the 3rd backup.