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I store thousands of files directly on the desktop folder.

When I tell that to some people, they begin to yell "you're making the computer slower!" without any rigorous arguments whatsoever, just like the reaction one often gets on whether emptier disk or less fragmentated files leads to a better performance.

This answer deals with millions of files, which is much more than what I'm having. However, files on desktop is different in that it is shown on the desktop view, most importantly would be that they're shown at all times.

Does putting many files on desktop affect computer performance?

Community
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user337370
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2 Answers2

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Short answer, yes it actually can!

Longer answer, it depends on how much you have on the desktop. The other guys answer is partially correct. Everything on the desktop is scanned on startup. So if you literally have 50 folders with tons of junk in them, or gigs of movies on the desktop, then it can degrade performance and on ear startup time. I have literally had over 50gb sitting on my desktop, and my computer ran like crap (Intel i5 with 8gb ram and 1tb hard drive). Once I cleaned my desktop, it ran like a dream again.

Here is what I do now. I have. Separate partition setup for most of my stuff. I have 250gb for my OS and the rest another partition as "storage". I have my documents, downloads, etc actually mapped to my storage partition. This way, if I format, I don't have to worry about "my documents" and all that. I also have a 2tb storage NAS drive..

On your desktop try to use shortcuts. I have a movies folder on my desktop, but it's just a shortcut to the movies somewhere else. This way, on startup, the computer only had to parse the shortcuts on your desktop instead of folders with more junk inside them.

Giacomo1968
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CyberPunkCodes
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When I had 1,900 items of various files & folders on my Desktop(Windows 7), explorer.exe/the Desktop was constantly crashing, and would take several seconds to load an explorer window[Windows key + E](if it happened at all).

After removing about 100 items, the problem went away. So, there seems to be a limit that Windows 7 can handle.

Also, having any shortcuts that no longer work will cause the Desktop to lag/crash.

Giacomo1968
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PowerStebe
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