In this little note for beginners we see everything there is to know about the Show desktop, the Windows feature that allows you to see the desktop background and its icons without having to close windows and open programs . I also want to point out an excellent program to manage the desktop exhibition with customized options, which will be highly appreciated by those who work with many open windows to have a quick shortcut to display desktop icons on the fly and open other programs or other files.
On all Windows 10, 8 and Windows 7 systems, you can show the Desktop at any time to the Windows-D key combination or, if more comfortable, Windows-M .
Any of the Windows keys are fine for activating the desktop, both the one on the left and on the right.
On Windows 7 and Windows the Show Desktop key is hidden in the system tray.
To see the desktop on the fly at any time you have to go with the mouse to the right corner of the screen, to the right of the clock.
If you want to create the "Show Desktop" button in Windows 10 and 7, you need to create it by opening a new text document and copying and pasting the following text:
[Shell]
Command = 2
IconFile = explorer.exe, 3
[Taskbar]
Command = ToggleDesktop
The name of the new text document must display the .txt extension: if not, go to the control panel, go to Folder Options -> Display and then remove the cross under " Hide extensions for known files ".
The moment you see the name of the complete file extension, you have to rename it by writing show desktop.scf .
Even more easily, you can find the Show Desktop key by opening a folder at the following location:
% appdata% \ Microsoft \ Internet Explorer \ Quick Launch
Here you can right-click on the Show desktop icon to create a shortcut to insert in the taskbar.
As an alternative to the Win-D or Win-M key combination, an alternative program may be interesting.
The most complete program to use the desktop show is PopUpIcons for which it has a lot of options to see the desktop leaving the windows open in transparency .
The program is from a Japanese but I tried it and you can download it by pressing the Download button.
The installation must be done, in Windows 7, in compatibility mode with Windows XP SP3 (press the right button on the PopUpIconsSetup21.exe file, properties, compatibility, change settings).
The program can be enabled to start automatically with Windows or not.
In the options you can choose the combination of keys to see the desktop, the way to return to the windows (by default the double click), whether to show the desktop when you put the mouse in a corner of the screen.
You can also decide the degree of transparency, the coloring and you can set exceptions, ie which windows should never be minimized when doing the desktop show.
PopUpIcons is a great program to make the most of the desktop show feature even if the options are in English.
