DesktopOnTop shows your desktop, no minimizing necessary

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

DesktopOnTop shows your desktop, no minimizing necessary

by Brad Linder Jul 4th 2008

Sometimes you want to open a file saved on your desktop, but you don't want to minimize all of the applications you're currently running just to get to it. DesktopOnTop can help. While Windows lets you add a "desktop" toolbar to the taskbar that will let you launch items saved on your desktop, DeskTopOnTop goes one step further and actually shows you a visual representation of your desktop.

If you just want a list, you can right-click on the DesktopOnTop icon in the system tray and get a start-menu lookalike with a list of programs and files on your desktop. But a left click brings up a picture of your desktop. Sort of. The first thing you'll probably notice is that the wallpaper doesn't match yours. If this bothers you, you can either change your desktop wallpaper to match DesktopOnTop (which nobody really expects you to do), or you can select a solid color that looks good with your desktop an adjust the program's transparency level.

DesktopOnTop is highly customizable and light weight. It uses about 8MB of RAM.

[via Freeware Genius]

Tags: desktopontop, icons, preview

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Bannana said 7:26PM on 7-04-2008

Win-D?

hazard said 8:37PM on 7-04-2008

this wont work because as soon as you change the z-order (by opening a new window) Win-D cannot restore to previous state.

soniiic said 8:37PM on 7-04-2008

no, just a little breezy

Muffin_man said 7:27AM on 7-05-2008

. . . or you can add the desktop button to the quick launch bar . . .

lilmoder said 7:34AM on 7-05-2008

I like Wind+D option.
Im also using "homemade" toolbar with shortcuts:
http://www.imagebam.com/image/fa15168851125

Phil said 8:26AM on 7-07-2008

I have a laptop with a second monitor. The second monitor is my main one - has the start bar etc. This app only shows the desktop on the laptop, not the screen where all my icons are.

James said 11:49AM on 7-07-2008

Agreed about Win-D -- there's two problems, and I use the shortcut all the time so I have a lot of experience with them. One, each window has to process a minimize request, then a restore request. If your system is acting sluggish for whatever reason, that can take a few noticeable seconds. Two, like an earlier poster noted, if you want to actually *launch a shortcut* from your desktop, the newly opened window will prevent you from restoring your previous windows with Win-D.

It sounds like this program will solve both those issues. I'm going to give it a go.

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