Is that true that if you keep bulky files on the Desktop then Windows slow down?

Actually if you have a very large zipfile on the desktop, it can cause a lot of speed issues. Personal experience: Prevent Explorer from Freezing With Large Zip Files on Vista

"It depends on the type of file. If you have files for which Explorer is capable of generating a preview or metadata (either directly or through an installed handler/shell-extension), then it could cause the system to be slow since the desktop is always “visible” (even if it’s covered by windows, it still had to be loaded during boot). For example, a very large video file will cause Explorer to slow down when first loading the desktop (afterwards, it should indeed be cached, so unless you move it around or modify it, it should not cause slow-downs due to re-reads).

If the file does not get a thumbnail or preview and is represented by a static icon, then the size is irrelevant; you could have a 50GB file and Explorer won’t even flinch because it doesn’t care.

What you should be even more worried about than the size of the file is having thumbnail-able files that are corrupt. If the file is corrupt, then Explorer could all but freeze while trying to read it and generate a thumbnail. This is particularly common with damaged/half-downloaded video files (look up “avi windows freeze”)."

I always keep huge files (like dVD images to burn) on my desktop and it doesnt slow down at all. The only thing that might slow down things a lottle would be loading different icons (icons as in images), but with a semi-newer computer this shouldnt affect you at all.

A brand new work CAD laptop kept all the CAD images on the desktop (very very large files) and crashed almost once an hour, on moving them into the documents folder, the issue dissipated straight away. I have since cleared all icons from the desktop on my home computers and have noticed an increase in speed (although not as significant as the work find).

[r]