How Hard Is It to Keep Desktop Icons Organized?
One of the things that I’ve noticed over years of working with Windows is that the operating system periodically reorganizes my desktop, whether I want it to or not. Now, I’m not one of those people who tends to fill the desktop with icons, but I do like to have a couple dozen shortcuts handy there. I organize them by topic and function: Server 2008 links here, Vista links there, handy utilities in a neat row in the middle, etc. So it’s pretty frustrating when Windows decides that my carefully laid-out organization needs to be discarded and my icons re-ordered. This happens in a distressing variety of circumstances: changing a Server 2008 box’s activation status; switching a laptop display to use an external output; updating a video driver; even (sometimes) applying a service pack or OS patch. I know, sometimes a display change involves switching to a lower resolution that won’t permit the icon layout one has arranged at a higher resolution. But how tough would it be, really, to save the layout to disk so that when one returned to the higher resolution, things would be back where they’re supposed to be? Third-party utilities (like WinTidy) exist that can accomplish this. Why does it seem so hard for Microsoft? As I spend time with Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, I wonder if these operating systems will be as disrespectful of my desktop layouts as virtually every previous version of Windows has been. It’s one of those little things, but the sum total of all the little things in software design can mean good usability versus poor usability.
