# Recent Places Icon on Desktop

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 18, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336 "2015-03-18T23:01:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336/1 "2015-03-18T23:01:30Z")

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I somehow created a Recent Places icon on my Win7 desktop that I can’t seem to get rid of and I don’t know how to move it to somewhere else. Any thoughts?

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**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336/2 "2015-03-18T23:12:44Z")

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I know on a Mac, something like that would be in either the equivalent of the Control Panel or in Finder Preferences (“Finder” is kind of like the file manager, or whatever Windows uses these days).

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**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336/3 "2015-03-18T23:37:46Z")

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Thanks eschereal, but I don’t see any place in the Control Panel to disable it.

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**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336/4 "2015-03-18T23:46:08Z")

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Two things to try:

Control Panel -\>Change Desktop Icons -\>check all the boxes, click “Apply” -\>uncheck all the boxes, click “Apply”

or

Open “Computer” -\>drag icon to “Favorites” -\>refresh desktop

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**Author:** ![MsKaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@MsKaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsKaren)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336/5 "2015-03-18T23:47:55Z")

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I have a folder I purposely created on my desktop called deskstuff. I drag into it anything I don’t wish to look at or can’t seem to delete. 😃

So I have about 5 icons including deskstuff.

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**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336/6 "2015-03-19T00:12:03Z")

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> [@DCnDC](#):
>
> Two things to try:
> 
> Control Panel -\>Change Desktop Icons -\>check all the boxes, click “Apply” -\>uncheck all the boxes, click “Apply”
> 
> or
> 
> Open “Computer” -\>drag icon to “Favorites” -\>refresh desktop

Unfortunately neither of those worked

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**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336/7 "2015-03-19T00:13:48Z")

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> [@MsKaren](#):
>
> I have a folder I purposely created on my desktop called deskstuff. I drag into it anything I don’t wish to look at or can’t seem to delete. 😃
> 
> So I have about 5 icons including deskstuff.

Nice idea… but it won’t go into a folder, only create a shortcut in the folder. Ugh.

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**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336/8 "2015-03-19T00:32:09Z")

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I rebooted and that fixed it. Go figure.

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**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recent-places-icon-on-desktop/715336/9 "2015-03-19T00:42:03Z")

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> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> I rebooted and that fixed it. Go figure.

That’s usually both the first and last thing I try. I assumed you had already tried that. Maybe one of the fixes you tried didn’t take effect until a reboot.