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How to Change Desktop Icon Size in Windows 7 & Vista. Do you find the size of desktop icons in Vista too large? I like things small, so I quickly found a way to make the icons much smaller. Windows 7 has normal sized icons, but you can also make them smaller or larger depending on your needs. There are actually three ways you can go about resizing icons: via the desktop, via the mouse scroll wheel or via Personalization. I find the second method to be the fastest and easiest, if you have a mouse attached to your system. If you read online also, there are a couple of registry entries that are supposed to allow you to change the desktop icon size, but I could not get them to work in Windows 7.
I have listed them at the bottom just in case you want to try on your system. Method 1 – Scroll Wheel. Firstly, go ahead and minimize all programs or windows so that you only see your desktop.
Then simply press and hold the CTRL key on your keyboard and scroll the mouse wheel up or down. You can make the icons really small or really big: Method 2 – Right- click Desktop. If you don’t have a mouse with a scroll wheel on it, you can change the size of the desktop icons in Windows 7 or Vista manually by simply right- clicking on the desktop, choosing View and then picking an icon size.
If you choose Classic Icons, that will change the size of all the icons to the default size in Windows XP. That’s my preferred choice. When using the desktop method, you only get three choices: Large, Medium and Classic (or Small).
Do you find the icon size on Windows Vista desktop too big or too small? The effect of visual appearance on shortcuts and programs icons, is more stark when users. Small Desktop Icons. In order to make your desktop icons smaller or larger do this: 1. Step Click on your desktop once to deselect everything. Step Click on an icon. I remember using a registry hack in XP that did the same thing & it did help with cleaning up the desktop somewhat. But know that I use Windows 7 I absolutely love. The more I use my computer, the more I realize how much I take search for granted. How many times have you lost a pair of socks or misplaced your keys only to wish.

When using the mouse wheel method, the range of sizes is much greater. Method 3 – Personalization. If you don’t have a mouse wheel and you want to resize your desktop icons to something other than the three options mentioned above, then you can manually edit the value.
To do this, right- click on the Desktop and choose Personalize. This will bring you to the personalization dialog where you can change the theme, etc. Here you want to click on Window Color. You’ll see a bunch of color options and at the bottom you will see a link for Advanced appearance settings. When you click on that, a Windows XP type dialog will pop up where you can choose at item and then change the size.
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In our case, we want to choose Icon and then change the value from 1. Method 4 – Registry Keys.
The following keys are mentioned all over the place on the Net, but changing them had no effect on the size of my desktop icons. As far as I can tell, it’s impossible to change the desktop icon size via the registry in Windows 7.
How to Make Icons Bigger. Posted August 2. 9, 2.
Ashley Blood in Windows 1. Windows 1. 0Do you find yourself squinting at your computer while trying to find that elusive icon on your desktop? This is bad for your eyes, leads to ergonomic problems from bad posture, and can cause tension headaches. Finding your applications should not make your work harder. Make life easier for yourself and increase the size of all the icons on your desktop by following these easy steps. Overall Display – To increase the size of all text, apps, and other items all at the same time, open up your Display settings.
Do this by clicking Start> Settings> System> Display or by right- clicking on your desktop and clicking Display Settings. There is a slider in the settings panel. Windows only gave me the option of setting the display to 1. Slide the blue slider to the right to set it to 1. Apply. You will be informed that you will need to log out of Windows for the change to take effect fully and give you an option to do that now or later. Desktop Icons – To increase the size of your desktop icons, click anywhere on your desktop.
Windows 8 provides several ways to increase or decrease the size of the items on your desktop. If all you want to do is change the size of your desktop shortcut icons. Even if you needed to upgrade your current computer, it’s probably easier to adjust to a new version of Windows, than to learn a completely different operating. Hold CTRL 2. Scroll mouse wheel Sorry about the notepad tutorial. This video is old. Do you find the size of desktop icons in Vista too large? For some strange reason, all of the icons are huge! I like things small, so I quickly found a way to make.
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Then press Ctrl on your keyboard, and scroll up with the mouse wheel until they are the size you want. Before: After: 3. Taskbar Icons – To increase the size of the icons in your taskbar, right- click on a blank space on the taskbar. If you cannot find a blank space in your taskbar to click, you can still access the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties through the Control Panel. Click on Start, and type taskbar in the search box.

When you start typing, the search results will appear. Click on the Taskbar and Navigation Control panel option as highlighted below. Now that you have the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window open, uncheck the box for Use small taskbar buttons. Press Apply at the bottom of the window.
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