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How do I get rid of an icon from my desktop?

I'm willing to do the remote access thing...some people get sorta antsy when you say "here, let me take control of your computer from a thousand miles away" so I'm always hesitant to ask.

But if Mark's game, I am!
 
"AtlantaSteve" said:
I'm willing to do the remote access thing...some people get sorta antsy when you say "here, let me take control of your computer from a thousand miles away" so I'm always hesitant to ask.

But if Mark's game, I am!
Click to expand...

Man Steve, you love living life on the edge. Who knows what virus's you'll get if you remote into Mark's machine!!! :lol :lol
 
"AtlantaSteve" said:
I'm willing to do the remote access thing...some people get sorta antsy when you say "here, let me take control of your computer from a thousand miles away" so I'm always hesitant to ask.
Click to expand...

I had someone do that once for me. Kinda weird, but fixed what I needed fixin'.
 
"70_Fastback" said:
Yeah, be careful Steve. That one could really SLOW your machine down!!!

:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol
Click to expand...

No, the PT virus is fast, its the silverblue thats sloooooow
 
deleted my previous response, due to questionable language on my part!
 
Steve is the MAN!!!

I gave him access to my PC and he had it fixed in seconds :pbj


Thanks again Steveo, learned something new today.....which rarely happens for me :ecit
 
"silverblueBP" said:
Steve is the MAN!!!

I gave him access to my PC and he had it fixed in seconds :pbj


Thanks again Steveo, learned something new today.....which rarely happens for me :ecit
Click to expand...

Hey - you're welcome. BEACH!
 
"70_Fastback" said:
Hey - you're welcome. BEACH!
Click to expand...


Phhhhht, you didn't fix it though.


I'll give you credit for offering up the idea before Jake did.........good enough :lol
 
"lethal289" said:
so what did it need?
Click to expand...

It needed someone other than a "hack" to fix it. We set up a go to meeting, he took over, went into command prompt, badda boom...badda bing, it was gone!


I'll refrain from giving out any more of Steve's secrets.
 
"AzPete" said:
At least now you can blame Steve for all the porn on your computer.
Click to expand...

That was the plan Pete :ecit



He he he he he from now on it's "it was all Steve's doing honey"
 
"lethal289" said:
so what did it need?
Click to expand...

You asked...you get an answer. Total Nerd Alert (and you guys thought my writings on Evolution were long...this is a subject I REALLY understand!)

Well, all my research indicated there was a problem with the name on the disk. You see, windows uses these functions (referred to as the Win32API) to do EVERYTHING it does. Everytime I press a key or move a mouse, the Win32API is going nuts. One set of those functions open, move, create, delete, etc. files on the system. These APIs have rules on what a filename can look like. Unfortunately, the hard drive has a different set of rules, and when a file gets onto the drive that is legal to the HardDrive, but illegal to windows, you get a problem addressing that file. When Mark would click on the file and try to delete it, Explorer (the program that controls the desktop, different from Internet Explorer) would say "OK the file is named this, so Win32API, I'm gonna call DeleteFile("Name Goes here"). Win32API would see that the name violated the rules, and would kick back the error.

So using deductive reasoning and dumb luck, I reasoned that I could use the Command Prompt to get around this. So I opened a command window, and Changed Directory into the directory on mark's system where all the desktop crap is stored. I took the first three characters of the file, "m21" if memory serves, and did a search in that folder for all files that followed that naming convention, typing:
dir m21*

This tells the command prompt "Give me a list of all files in this folder that start with m21.

I got back a list with only the one file in it, and that told me two things :
1) the Command Prompt is somewhat able to interact with this file on a rudimentary basis.
2)m21* only matches the one file, so it is safe to use the delete command against that pattern

So I then issued a delete command:

del m21*

That tells the command prompt to compile a list of all files that start with "m21" and delete them.

The delete command does things a little differently than right clicking on an icon and picking delete. When you issue del, the first thing the command does is compile a list of files that match the pattern. Not only does it get the files, though, it also gets their unique ID, not just the filename. After it's compiled the list, it shreds through it killing each file one by one, but when it Tells the Win32API to delete the file, it doesn't do it by telling the API the fileName, it uses that unique Identifier. Since that unique identifier points directly at the file on the disk, windows doesn't have to validate the filename.

The difference, technically is the difference between saying:

DeleteFile("C:\Windows\Some\FileName\I\Hope\is\legal\or\im\screwed.txt")
and
DeleteFile(21) (where 21 is the unique number that represents that file I want to delete.

Clear as mud?
 
I was wondering how you did got rid of it. I'll have to keep that in mind. And yes, I understood all of that, I'm a certified geek.
 
Yeah, I made it a 1/4 way through that before I got lost..... I like to think I have a general understanding of just about anything and seeing how I spend hours in front of my computer everyday, I would hope I'd understand it better. After a virus wiped out the hard drive on my business computer a few months ago, I realized I know nothing in the computer world..... I needed one of these..... :EB
 
"AtlantaSteve" said:
You asked...you get an answer. Total Nerd Alert (and you guys thought my writings on Evolution were long...this is a subject I REALLY understand!)

Well, all my research indicated there was a problem with the name on the disk. You see, windows uses these functions (referred to as the Win32API) to do EVERYTHING it does. Everytime I press a key or move a mouse, the Win32API is going nuts. One set of those functions open, move, create, delete, etc. files on the system. These APIs have rules on what a filename can look like. Unfortunately, the hard drive has a different set of rules, and when a file gets onto the drive that is legal to the HardDrive, but illegal to windows, you get a problem addressing that file. When Mark would click on the file and try to delete it, Explorer (the program that controls the desktop, different from Internet Explorer) would say "OK the file is named this, so Win32API, I'm gonna call DeleteFile("Name Goes here"). Win32API would see that the name violated the rules, and would kick back the error.

So using deductive reasoning and dumb luck, I reasoned that I could use the Command Prompt to get around this. So I opened a command window, and Changed Directory into the directory on mark's system where all the desktop crap is stored. I took the first three characters of the file, "m21" if memory serves, and did a search in that folder for all files that followed that naming convention, typing:
dir m21*

This tells the command prompt "Give me a list of all files in this folder that start with m21.

I got back a list with only the one file in it, and that told me two things :
1) the Command Prompt is somewhat able to interact with this file on a rudimentary basis.
2)m21* only matches the one file, so it is safe to use the delete command against that pattern

So I then issued a delete command:

del m21*

That tells the command prompt to compile a list of all files that start with "m21" and delete them.

The delete command does things a little differently than right clicking on an icon and picking delete. When you issue del, the first thing the command does is compile a list of files that match the pattern. Not only does it get the files, though, it also gets their unique ID, not just the filename. After it's compiled the list, it shreds through it killing each file one by one, but when it Tells the Win32API to delete the file, it doesn't do it by telling the API the fileName, it uses that unique Identifier. Since that unique identifier points directly at the file on the disk, windows doesn't have to validate the filename.

The difference, technically is the difference between saying:

DeleteFile("C:\Windows\Some\FileName\I\Hope\is\legal\or\im\screwed.txt")
and
DeleteFile(21) (where 21 is the unique number that represents that file I want to delete.

Clear as mud?
Click to expand...

In a nut shell......Steve used the oldschool DOS delete command.

Click the start button, then click run, type command and click ok.
It will start you in the documents and settings folder for whatever user you are logged in as.
Type dir/p to get a list of folders in that folder.
You will see desktop as a folder (directory, called out as [DIR])
Type cd desktop to switch to that directory.
Once in that directory type dir/w.
This will give you a list of files on the desktop.
Find the file you want to whack and type del filename and hit enter.

You will not be given any warning so be absolutely sure you want to whack the file. Once you hit enter, it's done. None of this are you sure bullshart. You have to be a man[nb]Not literally, just ballsy[/nb] to delete stuff in DOS.

You can verify the file is gone two ways, It is no longer on the desktop and you can retype dir/w (or lazy man's shortcut hit f3) and hit enter. This gives you a refreshed file list.

F3 repeats the last command you typed in.

Yes, I was around back in the days when you had to type all commands at the command line, edit the autoexec.bat and config.sys files manually, set your own IRQs and interupts, move jumpers around, and configure all of your hardware manually.

Oh the good old days :amaz
 
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