Saturday, October 18, 2008

Removing blue rectangular background behind the desktop icons

This can have variety of causes, hence there are many methods to fix this:-

First, make sure that you do NOT have "Lock desktop items" enabled. To find this go to:

Right click on desktop → properties → Display properties → Desktop → Customize desktop → under 'web' tab → uncheck "Lock desktop items."

Also right-click on the task bar and make sure that "lock the taskbar" is NOT selected.

1st Method

Right click on 'My computer' → Properties → Advanced Tab → under 'Performance' click 'Settings' → under 'Visual effects' Tab → click 'Custom' radio button → Turn on (if its OFF) the “use drop shadows for icon lables on desktop” → click 'ok' → save settings → restart system

2nd Method

Right click on 'My computer' → Properties → Advanced Tab → under 'Performance' click 'Settings' → under 'Visual effects' Tab → click 'Custom' radio button → Turn off (if its ON) the “use drop shadows for icon lables on desktop” → click 'ok' → save settings → restart system

3rd Method

If enabling/disabling ''use drop shadows for icon labels'' option results NO effect.

Here are some methods. Try out any of the following:-

  1. Right click on desktop → properties → Display properties → Desktop → Customize desktop → under 'web' tab → uncheck ALL the checkboxes (if any) under "Web Pages" frame and also, uncheck "Lock Desktop Items"→ save and restart.

    Background color should now be clear.

  2. Go to "C:\Documents and Settings\[your account folder]\Local Settings\" → and clear all entries the file "desktop.ini" → save and restart.

    Icon background should now be clear.

  3. You should also check your Active Desktop settings. Go to the following registry key:

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoActiveDesktop Set it to 1

    Restart and your desktop icon background should now be clear.

3 comments:

Supriya Loves Life said...

Hi,
This seems a quick reference / runbook for any sytem related problems.
Why dont you compile them into a Quick reference guide for the benefit of all those like me who get stuck with minor issues and finally do manage to get to the root cause but after a huge wastage of time

Unknown said...

Thank you soooooooooo much.I had been searching more than 100 site and use all of their solution but noone was not work. but you solution works great.Because only you have said to uncheck lock taskbar and lock desktop.THANK YOU SO MUCH

Balázsi József said...

Another solutions if none of the above works. Change your desktop picture format. I had my picture in png format and I could not remove the background color. I have changed it in jpeg format, and the background colour simply disappeared.

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