How to fix the fundamental flaw with "Show Desktop"?

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but the "Show Desktop" command (Windows+D) has a fundamental flaw, which I find really irritating…

If you "Show the Desktop" and then launch any icon from your Desktop (which is normally what people want to do) then all the windows which were previously open remain minimized, and you can no longer get your windows back as they were.

Does anyone know any way to fix this? Or, is there a way to quickly launch something from the desktop then get back all the windows you had open?

good point. That's why I have show desktop disabled and instead pinned a shortcut to my desktop folder on the taskbar

johnhoh said:

good point. That's why I have show desktop disabled and instead pinned a shortcut to my desktop folder on the taskbar

That sounds good, but how are you doing that? Are you simply enabling the "Desktop Toolbar"? I'm not keen on the Desktop Toolbar, for three reasons:

1. It results in the word "Desktop" being put on the Taskbar, which takes up space and I find annoying
2. It leads to a pop-out menu, rather than opening a Window, which is what I'd like
3. The actual button is just a small arrow - it's not a big deal, but I'd prefer something more substantial like an Explorer icon button.

no its not the desktop toolbar. Its actually a part of my Links toolbar. Navigate to c:\users\username\desktop, right-click on the desktop folder, drag it to the links toolbar part of the taskbar, select "create shortcut here". To avoid the word "desktop", right click on the taskbar and go to the toolbars and make sure "text" is unchecked. There is no pop-up menu, it just takes you to a folder view of the desktop. Since its a shortcut you can make the icon whatever you want.

johnhoh said:

Navigate to c:\users\username\desktop, right-click on the desktop folder, drag it to the links toolbar part of the taskbar, select "create shortcut here".

I don't get that option, I only get the options "Move" (which doesn't seem to do anything) or "Copy to Quick Launch" (which puts a link in the Quick Launch pop-up folder, not what I want).

Update: Sorry, I've just figured out how to do it… I added it to the Quick Launch toolbar, unlocked the Taskbar and re-sized the Quick Launch toolbar so that the icons aren't hidden and don't have text labels.

It's working perfectly! It sits right next to my Recycle Bin! I've also stuck a shortcut to My Computer in there for good measure!

THANK YOU SO MUCH JOHN! :)

glad you got it working. congrats

RoWin7 said:

There's also the little blue square at the extreme bottom right side of the screen.

Yes, but that does exactly the same thing as the shortcut. Either way, you can't get your windows back as they were if you launch something from the Desktop.