One of my favorite programs of the Windows 2000 era was a utility called SetShellView. This little app tweaked the Windows desktop, making your icons appear as “large icons”, “small icons” or as “list view” or “detailed view” – just like any other folder in Windows.
Sadly, this program was not updated for Windows XP.
I searched high and low for a replacement. And for the longest time I couldn’t find one. But one day I found a post at some now-forgotten message board. Someone else loved SetShellView too, and was asking about a replacement. One reply to that post was the cryptic, two-word “Try this:”, with a direct link to a program called deskview.exe. I downloaded it and used it for the rest of my Windows XP days.
As mentioned, deskview.exe changes your desktop icons from “large icons” to “small icons”. Unlike SetShellView, Deskview doesn’t have any options; you just double-click it to change the icons, then double-click it again to return your desktop to the default setting:
You can also put a shortcut to deskview.exe in your Startup folder. Deskview doesn’t remember your settings, so if you set it up and reboot your computer (or if Explorer crashes) you’ll need to double-click on deskview.exe and re-organize your desktop icons again.
Deskview works in Windows Vista, but requires some tweaking. By default, it will only shrink your existing icons by a certain percentage. For example, in the following picture the icons were originally set at “Medium icons” before deskview.exe was run:
To really shrink your Vista desktop icons, you need to hold down the CTRL key, then scroll the mouse wheel (this will shrink – or enlarge – the desktop icons), and then run DESKVIEW.EXE to shrink them even further.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not the author of deskview.exe, nor do I know how to contact the author of the software. I have no idea if this software is licensed, and if so, what terms are provided in said license. If you are the author of deskview and want me to remove it, or credit you with its authorship, please don’t hesitate to contact me!
Download Deskview
11kb, zipped
Try this: http://iamwill.com/dev/desktopListView/index.php 🙂
Hey, nice work! I saw a jpeg of a desktop that looked really busy and it had your icons, so I wondered if I could find something to make mine smaller. It works great!
Thanks for this. Icons on the desktop are a listview with icons set as the default view. To illustrate this, open Windows Explorer and View the right pane as Icons, then Tile, then List. Deskview changes the view from Icon to List.
Another program that that performs what Deskview does and offers much more is D-Color XP. It is tiny in size too. Check it out.
http://dliboon.freeshell.org/?view=software
Jim:
You are so gracious to continue to host this utility. I have linked to your page for it countless times. I realize it’s only out of the goodness of your heart, but if you would set up a paypal donation link, I’m sure some people (myself included) would like to show some gratitude. I believe in putting my money where my mouth is by repaying such kindness. Deskview makes the screen I look at every day more pleasant.
Vista = Hold down CTRL and scroll down with mouse.
Wonderful find!!! I normally hide all my desktop icons, but turn them on when I’m on a downloading spree. This makes everything look nice and neat. Nothing worse than a cluttered desktop.
What an awesome tool! I hate having icons all over my desktop, so this will be very handy.
In order to change size in vista with icon hold ctrl and scroll your mouse (make sure desktop is left-clicked once and active) it will shrink your icons, now run the .exe of this soft and it will look nice.
Thank you sooooooooooo much
I just have to say…. I have wanted this program for SO DARN LONG! Not really so badly that I’d go out and comb the internet, but it was one of those things that would “tickle” the back of my brain when my desktop would get to cluttered or my projects would get intensive/heated… Translation = When I’d get busy, i’d bury or loose files on my desktop… sad. This is the perfect item!!
i have been using this little geme for a long time, and thanks so far for keeping it for us ….
I have been using Pistachio for about two years and it provides small desktop icons along with dozens of other desktop and mouse features. It is FREEWARE and can be added to your STARTUP so that it functions at bootup. Free at: http://pitaschio.ara3.net/
I’ll try some of the other progs mentioned to see if they are better. I only needed small icons, so if they work as well, then I may change, since that is the only function I use in Pistachio. So far, for small icon progs, I’ve found Pistachio, Deskview, Win Tidy (but it warns you not to use on XP SP2 and higher, but heck, I’ll try it), and Verve.
Deskview is just about the best feature I have seen for a long time… amazing Windows haven’t had it on their menu for destop view.
good site unxrie
SetShellView 2 is available, and it works for VISTA:
http://www.virtualplastic.net/download/apps/setshellview2.exe
The site hosting it also has a plethora of other great desktop information:
http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/icn_desk.html
Thank U Sir,
But my problem still there constant. i could not get back my icon back in normal size. it look like nagetive picture and overlaped.
give me a solution.
thanks
Sudhanshu: have you deleted the file SHELLICONCACHE and rebooted? that should fix the problem.
If you have TweakUI installed, there is also a “repair icons” option that should fix it (note: all it does is delete and recreate SHELLICONCACHE, which you could easily do yourself).
wonderful post))
Good night, blogegrs =)
For Vista: hold CTRL and use your mouse scroll wheel to change the icon size, you can make them as small as normal list view using this method.
how do I change it back?
Its to small for me
never mind I did It
thanks
how is this different than destoplistview?
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=462433
Its ok untill the desktop is refreshed
But when the desktop is refreshed the names of icons overlap on other icons
how to uninstall deskview
@adi: just delete the deskview.exe file. There’s no “installation”.
Indeed, this app is one of the nicest windows tweaks 😛 😉
Its just a simple desktop mod, but it gives so much free space!
Very good to get comfortable with this gross interface that is windows X.XX (and mac, and linux) (so gross:P )
The only crap with deskview is that it doesnt cut filenames’s lenght if there are 2 columns. (and if it ever gets to do it, i realy whish it wont make filenames ending with “…”) 😛
Yet, having long filenames has good sides too;)
So yah, if someone reads this and cares, please give 1000$ to the software’s author 😛
Deskview doesn’t work with Windows 7 RC 64bit
I had gotten it to work with Windows 7 Beta 64bit, but something must have changed.
nevermind… It works fine after you disable UAC … AND reboot.
Works great. It would be nice if I could choose to keep some icons large though.
deepdvd…
I also had problems with Windows 7 RC 64-bit and DeskView.exe.
UAC is turned off already. I used the Control Panel GUI and tried the registry method also.
What steps did you take to get it to work?
I just upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit (MSDN subscriber), and I can’t remember doing anything but turning off UAC to get deskview to work in RC.
Sorry Jay, but I’m in the same boat now. I’ll post here if I get it working again.
Jay, I figured out what I did to get it to work in Windows 7. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with disabling UAC either.
On both the Beta and RC, I had removed the watermark on the desktop that showed the version by using the tool listed (with download link) below. As a positive side-effect, it was also what made Deskview.exe work!
Just follow the directions.
RemoveWatermarkX64.exe
http://rs300.rapidshare.com/files/182853716/RemoveWatermark_20081210.zip
Apparently, I was too hasty on my solution. It only works temporarily after you log off after running RemoveWatermarkX64.exe.
After rebooting, it won’t work anymore.
Apparently, I was too hasty on my solution. It only works temporarily after you log off after running RemoveWatermarkX64.exe.
After rebooting, it won’t work anymore.
i agree that……..
Howto sort the list on the desktop ?
@Martin
Right-click the desktop and do Sort by –
This is the most handy program I’ve come across. Thanks mate!!
Fine……………..
I had problems getting this to work in Windows 7 x64 Ultimate but finally figured out something that works for me.
Instead of running the file directly, I created a shortcut to the .exe and ran that.
I put the exe in C:\Program Files(x86)\Deskview\ Then I put the shortcut in the startup folder for Win 7. C:\Users\YourProfile\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windws\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\
This way it starts up automatically when I log in
It didn’t work for me on Windows 7 until I went to Personalize -> Desktop Icons, changed those around (I previously had them all off), and re-ran the program.
My Deskview no longer works for some reason, I see the cmd flash like usual but it does nothing anymore
winxp sp3
please tell me how to ROMOVE THIS FUCKING THING !!!!!!!!!!!!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, My desktop become so UGLY LIKE shit
delete is not useful
HElp !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it make my FONTS become longer, and it SUX and ugly !!!
@kyoiroi: Sorry you don’t like it. You don’t have to do anything to “remove” it: just double-click on the app to return your desktop to the previous settings, then delete the DESKVIEW.EXE file.
@Chad: THANKS!
I just switched to Windows 7 from the RC, and I can’t believe how simple it was to get this to work.
All you have to do to get deskview.exe to work is…
Right-click the desktop, Personalize -> Change desktop icons AND uncheck “Allow themes to change desktop icons”.
After you uncheck that, deskview works perfectly!
I have been using Deskview ever since I found it on this site. IMHO this is an AWESOME desktop tweek. I REALLY like the way the file name are fully displayed (I have lots of files that all start the same and the mouse over is annoying to wait for) and how they never overlap and I get them all close together rather than all over the desktop. Wish you knew who wrote the code I would very gladly register and pay for it (maybe not $1000 but definately $20). Thanks for the Win7 fix. I was depressed that I thought MS had “broken” another great program, but your fix worked.
how do i change large desktop icons into smaller icons
I find this very interesting and working fully fine on my windows xp. Great.
That’s great idea, but I will wait/expect an enancement of this tool e.g. in combination with an additional utility like “Save Desktop”.
So I can change the view of the desktop and store or restore it with “save desktop”. Why?
The reason to wish non OS utilit-y/ies is that the user-s want avoid numerous click to have the wished results.
Maybe we can find the developper or one of you can reach the developper of “save desktop in order to enance own application/tweeck with “Deskview”
Best regards. Arny006
Hello
Thanks from Germany !!!!! 🙂
Gracias por tu esto pero solo tiene un problema que cuando lo apago y lo vuelo a ensender queda muy mal los iconos
Hi,
Make desktop icons have the “list view” or “deatailed view” is the only tweak I’d like to implement on my Vista-PC.
But rather than installing an application, I’d prefer to run a command or change some register key or value.
Do you know how to do it?
Run DeskView, uncheck auto-arrange and install Desktop Restore:
http://www.midiox.com/index.htm?http://www.midiox.com/desktoprestore.htm
Now save Desktop using Desktop Restore, kill the explorer process, launch DeskView and click Restore Desktop and Voila!!, your icons will be restored to their original positions.
This bit of software is great on XP, Ive just discovered another app to use in conjunction with Deskview called Fences, and combining the two its almost exactly what I want. However Fences doesn’t display correctly as the icons are left to right instead of up and down at the moment. I have requested it for a future feature addition, so hopefully they will combine the two.
We need this for windows 7! 🙂
It does work for Windows 7… place it in your startup folder and restart.
Works fine on my Windows 7 64-bit.
Does anyone know how to configure it so that more text can be seen? I have really long file names and instead of seeing “…” at the end, I’d like to see the entire file name. Thanks!
just started running win7, noticed deskview.exe doesnt minimize desktop icons completely to their smallest size… so i’ve ran “D-color Xp” program first
(another desktop tweaker with deskview option) …
in settings set “tile icons”
then applied deskview.exe
and achieved same icon sorting like in XP
The “use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop” doesn’t work with this. Any clues?
Thank you my friend!
To change size of desktop icons in W7, select icon, hold Ctrl, mousewheel up or down.
weee ,, ty for this :)) ,, greats
not working inWindows 8.1 RTM
increases and decreases the size but dont show a list view. Pls make it working
Well, Deskview has never supported list view. SetShellView did, but it only works (worked?) in Windows 2000. And it’s not my app, so I can’t update it.
A lot of people to be looking a gift horse in the mouth regarding this app. Thanks for keeping it alive.
It seems as if the latest update of Windows 8.1 has disabled this wonderful program. 🙁 Running deskview now does not change my desktop icons.
WOW! Im so happy to see that working again!!! Thanks
Mr. Jim Cofer and others who visit this old thread: Jim, thanks, use DV and it’s a real productivity gainer for me – thanks for your post. But the reboot problem is a nagging concern. I’m going to post in How-To-Geek in the Computer Help category. If I find a work-around I’ll post here too. ~ guido, Fort Worth, TX
Ok Jim and followers, after some more searching I’ve found what I was looking for. It’s called “IconRestorer.” See http://iconrestorer.en.softonic.com/ for one place to review and download. Note – the “CON” on that page is correct but to restore after rebooting is a single click on the IconRestorer and a second click to close the application interface. Two clicks and you’re set (for free). They ask for a donation if you want it to auto-restore without intervention. That seems fair to me. I’m going to keep test driving it – if it’s stable I intend to donate and enjoy the automated function and to support their work. ~ Guido from Fort Worth, TX.
https://code.google.com/p/desktoplistview/
Great download, works on windows 10 too!
Update to my post in Nov 2015. Been test driving IconRestorer. I made a small donation to try the full version. Seems to do what it says it will except upon restoring I’m getting icons on top of icons. I reported the bug – no response from developer (twice). Disappointed they haven’t responded. But until I find something better I’ll stick with Deskview and IconRestorer.
Doesn’t work on Windows 10!
works fine on my version of windows 10. i used to use this on xp as well and looked for it again. glad its still here.
use deskview and desktopOK
No longer works properly (with my PC) post Creators Update for Win 10. Icons will auto arrange with spacing as if they are large icons.
does not work on Dual / Multiple Monitor Systems , does anyone know a workaround