Are your Windows XP icons showing their ugly, jaggy edges? Are the labels framed in that ugly, off-color box? Fear not! With the help of the internets I have finally discovered once and for all how to banish them to the land of … uh… ugly crap, and you too can have fancy-looking transparent desktop icons! I had had this problem plague me long and hard, but thanks to some handy advice I’ve just found I can finally enjoy some attractive desktop action.
The first thing you need to do is enable the transparency:
- Right click on your ‘My Computer’ icon and select ‘Properties’.
- Go to the ‘Advanced’ tab and click the ‘Settings’ button under the ‘Perfomance’ section.
- From here you have 2 options:
- Choose ‘Adjust for best appearance’ which will give you all of the visual tweaks XP has to offer, but may slow your computer down.
- Choose the ‘Custom’ option and be sure that ‘Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop’ is checked off.
- Hit the OK button until you’re back at the desktop. Windows may pause to work on the changes for a minute or two, but afterwards you should have a spiffy look to your desktop!
Now if you still don’t have some fancy looking icons on your desktop there may be one more setting you need to alter:
- Right click the desktop and selecet ‘Properties’
- On the ‘Desktop’ tab click the ‘Customize Desktop…’ button.
- On the ‘Web’ tab be sure that the ‘Lock desktop items’ checkbox is not checked.
- Hit the OK button until you’re back at the desktop.
Now you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. ^^
References: entity.cc and annoyances.org