There can be many instances when you do not want the desktop icons to be seen, for instance, during online meetings, while capturing screenshots, etc. In such cases, the best thing to do would be to temporarily hide the desktop icons on your Windows 10 PC. There are two ways through which you can hide the desktop icons that are explained below.
Method 1: Temporarily Hide all Desktop Icons using Desktop Context Menu
Step 1: Right-click anywhere on an empty area on your desktop, click on View in the context menu to open a sub-menu. Untick the Show desktop icons to hide all the desktop icons immediately.
Method 2: Temporarily Hide all Desktop Icons using Registry Editor
Solution 1
Step 1: Press Windows key + R together on your keyboard to open the Run box. Type Regedit in the box to open the Registry Editor.
Step 2: In the Registry Editor window, navigate to the below path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Next, right-click on the right side of the window, on the blank area, select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Step 3: Name the DWORD Value as NoDesktop and hit Enter.
Step 4: Double-click on the DWORD and set the Value Data to 1, and press OK to save the changes. Reboot your PC for the changes to e effective.
*Note: If the Explorer key is missing under Policies, you can create one manually. Follow the below steps for the same.
Step 1: Double-click on Policies key on the left, select New, click on Key.
Step 2: Name the key as Explorer.
Solution 2
Step 1: Alternatively, you can also temporarily hide the desktop icons by navigating to the below path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
On the right side of the window, locate and double-click on HideIcons.
Step 2: Change the Value Data to 1 and press OK to save the changes. Reboot your PC for the changes to e effective.