I was asked a question earlier, that I hadn’t heard for a while, which was “Does having lots of icons on the desktop slow down Windows”, the answer is not really – but needs some clarification, so here are some scenarios to consider.

• Most icons are simply small files, known as shortcuts, which contain enough information to launch an application. Putting applications themselves, or large data files, on your computer desktop as icons, could slow logging on and off of your computer – especially if your profile is stored on a network drive.
• If you are noticing a dramatic slow down in your computer it is unlikely to be because you have lots of icons. The first thing you should do would be to consider anything you might have installed on your computer recently, including patches and updates. Also, ensure you run an anti-malware scan just to be on the safe side.
• You might want to consider organising your icons into folders to make them more manageable, and perhaps culling redundant icons but this would be to reduce the visual clutter rather than gain any speed improvements.
• Installing lots of programs (that may have icons) that have components which run in the background could slow down your computer, depending on the applications, so removing unnecessary or similar redundant applications may reduce the number of background processes, memory requirements, and lead to performance improvements. Also check your start up folder for any unnecessary applications.
• Having lots of graphic intensive operations on the go could have a small impact on performance if they need to be constantly redrawn, but this is likely to impact older computers far more than newer ones.
• If you are experiencing corruption of trouble with icons in general, it could be that your iconcache.db file needs rebuilding. On XP this file is located in \Documents and Settings\YourUsername\Local Settings\Application Data and is usually hidden, on Vista and Windows 7 it is usually in \Users\UserName\AppData\Local. A quick way of rebuilding this file would be to change your colour depth setting in Display settings or restarting explorer (or just rebooting) – but make sure you are comfortable with what you are doing before you go deleting files.

Before removing anything ensure you understand the implications. A shortcut icon should generally be acceptable (denoted by a small arrow at the bottom of the icon) but if an application itself has found its way into your desktop folder (and into an icon), then removing the icon could remove the application itself – so tread carefully.