If you want your desktop to look beautiful, then you can place an eye catching wallpaper. But all the desktop icons over it, make it look clumsy. You can choose to hide the desktop icons to bring out the beauty of your Windows desktop.
The following pictures are a comparision of how the Windows desktop looks with and without icons hidden :
To hide the desktop icons in Windows XP, follow these steps :
- Right click anywhere in an empty area on your Windows Desktop.
- From the right-click menu, choose Arrange Icons By → Show Desktop Icons to uncheck the Show Desktop Icons as shown
- This would immediately hide all the desktop icons.