How can I prevent applications from trespassing on my precious desktop space?

Question

I like to keep my desktop clean. I have a single icon one my desktop: the recycle bin. Any other icon that shows up on the desktop quickly will end up in the recycle bin.

When you sensible install programs, they'll have a checkbox asking if you want an icon on the desktop, initially unchecked.

But the majority of programs that I have installed have been irritatingly presumptuous and think they should have an esteemed spot on the desktop.

I'm sick of having to deal with this madness. How can I set up some sort of automatic process that detects desktop trespassers and clobbers them into oblivion when they are found?

(I'm using Windows 7, by the way, if that matters)

Answer 1

How about right clicking the desktop and unchecking Show Desktop Icons?

Since that wasn't accepted, creating a scheduled task to delete all files on the desktop to run every so often. Run DEL %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\*.* /F /S /Q for the task

Finally what you can try is setting your desktop folder and the hidden Public Desktop folder to read access only for Administrators and your user

Answer 2

How about a Scheduled Task?

You could run a scheduled task every few minutes that did

del %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\*.*

(system folders such as recycle are not in the Desktop folder so this won't cause problems with these)

You could even enable auditing on the Desktop folder, then trigger the task based on an event. Enable auditing on your Desktop folder (add files) for Everyone, then create a file on the desktop.

Check the security eventlog to see what event ID was generated, then use this in the Triggers tab of the Scheduled Task