Do shortcuts and folders on the desktop really slow the PC down? [closed]

Solution 1:

Right now i'm working on linux, but i had fences installed in my home system.

Having a lot of icons does not slow down your system per se, because the worst case scenario is each icon occupying a few kb of the memory. But it slows down operations like refresh because each time you refresh, the icon cache is rebuilt and all the icons are re-rendered. Another aspect is that of icon arrangement. If you have it automatically done by windows, its the quickest. But if you don't align it to grids and prefer choosing your own placement, it takes up some more memory, that could potentially slow things a bit.

I think another reason for the slow down would be the fact that every time you access the desktop [like closing a window, or minimizing everything], Windows has to redraw all the icons.

Oh and, if you have anything more than 1GB of RAM, this is a complete non-issue! :)

Solution 2:

Nonsense.

Desktop icons use only a minute amount of system resources. Your system was designed to allow you to use desktop icons without it having any major effect on the system. If it were a problem then the system wouldn't have been designed that way.

This issue is nothing more than another dose of popular hype that gets spread around the Internet and taken seriously only because it's repeated so often.

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth" - Lenin

If you have a slow computer it may be because you have too many programs launched and running in the background. This is most often caused by having too many programs set to launch when you boot your system up. All that does is make the programs start up a little bit faster when you want to use it, but it isn't all that much faster to make a great difference (a matter of seconds is all), so having those running in the background when not in use is just a waste of system resources.

See here for more information,

http://biggeekdaddy.com/startupprograms.html

There are also other things that can be slowing your system down. Desktop icons are the very least of anyone's worries in this respect.

Solution 3:

Since it is another application running on your desktop, will it technically slow down the PC? Yes.. will it be super noticable on your setup? No not likely.

A desktop background most likely eats more memory and system resources than Fences.

I wouldn't worry about it unless its something noticeable, for me it is smooth like butter, and no harm no foul.