October 11, 2008

Refreshing the desktop is perhaps the biggest computer myth among all Windows users.

I have seen several computer users around me doing tons of refreshes thinking that they are speeding up the process.

It’s not known who first discovered this remarkably worthless trick and what he achieved from it, but it just spread.

Most new users learn this trick from other new users without caring to know what it does.

Some do it devotedly just because others do it, while some others have various weird explanations for it.

A few of them assume that it refreshes the RAM, while some others believe that doing it will somehow keep their PCs running smooth and easy.

Time to throw some light on it.

What does a desktop refresh actually do?

Refreshing the desktop simply redraws the icons on the desktop. That’s it!

It does not:

• Refresh the RAM
• Clean the PC

This means while your computer is busy with something you are just giving it something else do with something that is already going on. Instead of making things fast, you are delaying the processing as now it also needs to re-draw the whole display.

Refreshing the desktop has absolutely no effect on the working or performance of the computer.

So why is the tool there?

Sometimes when you bring some changes to the desktop icons, the change doesn’t get reflected instantly. In such cases, refreshing the desktop becomes necessary to bring the change to effect.

This is what refresh is for. It is to re-display the desktop. Refresh has the very same function when done in Explorer.