Windows Tools, Help & Guides

I like my desktop neat and tidy, and I keep the number of icons down to a minimum. I also prefer to have them all lined up using the “Align to grid” function. However.

Since I prefer to use small icons, I found the standard grid size to be too big, making my desktop look untidy and hard to look at. Being a graphics designer I care about these things maybe just a tad too much, but I did find a solution, other than using a non-grid layout.

Reducing the grid-size in Windows

If you take a look at the “before” picture you see all my neat, small icons lined up using the standard grid-size. The waste of space between them annoyed me. Manually re-positioning the icons (without locking them to the grid) is tiresome and need constant monitoring to keep it neat. In order to lock the icons to a smaller we need to use the “OLD” windows appearance settings. If you use Windows XP, disregard the “old” comment.

From Windows 7 (or Vista)

1. Right click the desktop and select Personalize.
2. Open Windows Color and Appearance (Click the Color-Icon underneath the Theme window)
3. Click “Advanced Appearance Settings”.
4. Look for the horizontal and/or vertical icon-spacing in the drop-down menu (I chose to edit the vertical spacing only).
5. 
   Reducing the number will squeeze the icons closer together (I ended up with a setting of 28 that suited my screen-resolution and icon-size).

From Windows XP

1. Right-click the desktop, and click Properties.
2. In the Display Properties dialog box, click the Appearance tab.
3. Click the Advanced button.
4. Look for the horizontal and/or vertical icon-spacing in the drop-down menu (I chose to edit the vertical spacing only).
5. 
   Reducing the number will squeeze the icons closer together (I ended up with a setting of 28 that suited my screen-resolution and icon-size).

The result

Looking at the before and after picture clearly shows a neater and prettier layout. And there you have it.

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