{"id":4182,"date":"2013-02-20T00:01:49","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T07:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=4182"},"modified":"2013-02-16T14:01:17","modified_gmt":"2013-02-16T21:01:17","slug":"the-desktop-screenshot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=4182","title":{"rendered":"The Desktop Screenshot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every so often, I snap a picture of my Windows computer desktop. That may seem weird and dismissible, but I have a valid justification. Not only that, every so often I have to remind myself to do it.
\n
\nLike most people, I have icons on my desktop that represent programs and folders I use often. After a while, finding those icons becomes predictable. In fact, knowing that the icons are there makes using the computer more efficient. That is, until Windows does something stupid and re-arranges all the icons.<\/p>\n

The biggest culprit is re-sizing the screen, setting another resolution. That doesn’t happen often, but when it does, Windows re-arranges all the desktop icons. Rather than try to guess how everything was before, I’ve resorted to occasionally snapping a picture of my desktop and keeping it for reference. That trick has saved my sanity more than a few times.<\/p>\n

To snap a picture of the desktop and save it for posterity, follow these steps:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Close any open windows so that you see only the desktop and its assortment of icons and what-have-you.<\/li>\n
  2. Press the Print Screen key on the keyboard. It may also be labeled PrtSc.<\/li>\n
  3. Open the Paint program.<\/li>\n
  4. In Paint, press Ctrl+V to paste in the desktop image.<\/li>\n
  5. Save the image. Name it desktop<\/code> along with the current date, for example: Desktop February 20, 2013<\/code>.<\/li>\n
  6. Close Paint.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The file is saved in the Pictures or My Pictures folder, waiting for whenever you need it.<\/p>\n

    The next time Windows screws up the desktop, or you accidentally change things or — worse — let your “computer genius” nephew Victor use the PC for a while, you have an active template by which you can restore things.<\/p>\n

    To use the file, simply open it. You don’t want to view the image full-size, but rather at about 50% resolution. That’s a good size for comparing the real desktop with the saved image. You can then move icons about on the desktop to match the image.<\/p>\n

    Here is my Windows PC’s current desktop image, which I created on February 10 of this year:<\/p>\n

    \"Windows

    Windows Desktop Image, February 10, 2013.<\/p><\/div>\n

    I have older desktop<\/code> files as well; the key to being successful with this trick is remembering to snap a desktop picture every so often. The reason I took one on the 10th was that I changed monitors. So I used the previous desktop<\/code> picture file to help setup the current desktop, then I took another snapshot.<\/p>\n

    Oddly enough, I don’t do this trick with my Macintosh, although I could. I suppose the Mac just has a better track record of not randomly moving icons around.<\/p>\n

    \"mac-pc\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Every so often, I snap a picture of my Windows computer desktop. That may seem weird and dismissible, but I have a valid justification. Not only that, I have to remind myself to do it every so often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,17],"class_list":["post-4182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","tag-pc","tag-troubleshooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4182"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4275,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182\/revisions\/4275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}