Windows 7: Can Save to Desktop But Can't see it

The other day I downloaded a PDF and saved it to my desktop, to my surpirse I did not see it on the desktop. I downloaded it again thinking I fat fingered something and tried to save it to my desktop but now it says the file already exist. Iv'e done the right click deal to desplay icons and refreshed the screen but I still can't see the file. I am logged in as an administrator as well. I checked some of the threads out here but most of them are related to disappearing icons, in my case they never show up in the first place. I'm pretty new to Windows 7 so it may be some setting I'm missing, any help would be appreciated

Hello Raceman, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might double check using the tutorial below to make sure that you have Show Desktop Icons checked.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...hide-show.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Which desktop did you save it to? Each user has his/her own desktop which contains shortcuts to programs/applications/files that they place there. They are not visible to any other user. In addition, there is the Public desktop, and any shortcuts placed there are visible to all users, together with any shortcuts on the individual's own personal desktop (in effect, for display purposes, the 2 desktops are superimposed on top of each other and the icons arranged so that they are not overlapping).

Regardless of which desktop you saved the file to, you will not be able to see it unless you have Show Desktop Icons enabled, as mentioned by Shawn above.

I've checked and " show destop Icons' is enabled

Have you tried to "search" for the file name, and then see exactly what folder it was placed in (assuming it is found by search, which presumably it must be)?

Do you have Show Hidden Files and Folders turned on?

Three things come to mind:

1. Temporarily reduce your screen resolution to see if you can see the icon and drag it toward the center of the screen. Then you can set your resolution back to what it was.

2. If your Desktop is filled with too many icons you may not be able to add any more. If this is the case, try deleting one and see if a new one that you hadn't seen, appears somewhere on the Desktop. (This happened to me when I used to fill my Desktop with tons of icons.)

3. Here's a work-around: Save the PDF file to your Documents. Then, go into Windows Explorer and manually move (Cut and Paste) the file from your Documents to your Desktop.

Good thought, but I think the resolution needs to be numerically INCREASED rather than decreased, in order to hunt for icons which for some reason may currently be "off-screen".

In other words, if 4:3 resolution is currently 1024x768, increase it to 1152x864 or 1280x960 to enlarge the desktop real estate presented on your screen, and sure enough you may now see what previously were "off-screen" icons.

Same idea with rectangular 16:9 or 16:10 LCD screens, again increasing the numeric resolution to make more visible on that screen.

Maybe this is just semantics... and you were suggesting "making things smaller" by increasing the desktop size in pixels, which means we're both saying the same thing.


But I still think a "search" would at least locate the file location using Explorer. Then we could determine if it really did go into the "Desktop" folder (of what user?), or somewhere else.

Yes I have "Show Hidden Files" turned on but this should not be a hidden file since I saved it to my desktop. I'll try the screen resolution tonight when I get home. I would think if I do a search on my C: drive I should be able to find the file in my desktop directory, I'll try that tonight and post the results

Have you tried to log odd and log on again?

Also have you tried to Refresh your Desktop (Rightclick and then click Refresh)

Is the file seen in your User Desktop - C:\Users\*user name*\Desktop



Josh