Desktop Modify

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on February 14, 2013

The Windows desktop can be a fairly ordinary place, no matter what kind of background or wallpaper you use. The problem is right in front of you: boring rows of shortcuts. You can sort them by name, date, and type, if that's your idea of a good time, but that's about it. But then we downloaded Onekit's Desktop Modify. This simple freeware lets you arrange your desktop icons in a wide range of shapes, including circles, stars, crosses, and many more. There are up to 77 shapes in five categories: Basic Shapes, Christmas, Nature, Objects, and Others. You can customize the size and placement of the shapes, including the distance between icons. You can save your custom layouts, too. Desktop Modify is compatible with Windows 98 to 8, including 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Desktop Modify's simple, dialog-style interface collects everything you need in one compact space, including a scrolling Shapes menu and a variety of sliders and arrows for customizing the layout. We started simple with a Five-Pointed Star and pressed Fit Shape to Screen. Desktop Modify rearranged our icons into a new shape. Unfortunately, it bore no resemblance to a star. According to the Help file, you need 10 or more icons to render shapes. We had 32, so no issues there. It turns out you must disable Auto Align and Align to Grid in your desktop options. We did, and Desktop Modify rearranged our icons into a somewhat flattened star that we easily fine-tuned with the program's positioning tools. We could also simply drag icons into position. In fact, one of the coolest things about Desktop Modify is the ability to create your own shapes and save the layout. But with so many ready-made shapes to choose from, there's something for nearly every user.

Desktop Modify proved easy enough to use, once we'd sorted out our desktop settings. We'd like to see a more explicit notification, since features like Auto-arrange have become very popular, but we're glad the program didn't simply change our settings on its own. All in all, Desktop Modify is well worth a look since it makes your desktop well worth looking at!