Technology Tales

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When desktop.ini files appear on the Windows Vista desktop...

Published on 14th January 2008 Estimated Reading Time: 1 minute

Being an experienced computer user, I set Windows Explorer to display hidden files when using a Windows PC. However, on my Vista-empowered laptop, that causes two desktop.ini files to appear on the desktop, one for all users and one for my user account. And displaying hidden files does not seem to be something that you can do on a folder by folder basis. With XP, this did not cause hidden files to appear on your desktop like this, so the behaviour could be seen as a step backwards.

A spot of googling exposed me to some trite suggestions regarding re-hiding files again, but deleting them seems to be the only way out. Despite the dire warnings being issued, there didn't seem to be any untoward problems caused by my actions. For now, I'll see if they stay away, yet episodes like this do make me wonder if it is time for Microsoft to stop treating us like idiots and give us things that work the way in which we want them to function. Well, I'm glad that Linux is the linchpin of my home computing world...

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Comment:

  • John says:
    28 November 2025 at 02:22

    What I do these days is to hide every desktop icon and activate the Desktop menu in the taskbar. That avoids all of the above, though Windows 11 may not make this go as well as it did on Windows 10. Exploring one's options always pays dividends.

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