Are Desktop Icons loaded into RAM?

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Raptoreem

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Feb 13, 2012
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Curious question.

The internet seems to disagree. From my research the conclusion I drew was that any shortcut icon on the desktop (that is, anything contained somewhere other than C:\users\[user]\desktop) is not loaded into ram since it is contained in storage while programs and files that are located on the desktop are loaded into ram upon startup.

Do I have this right?

This guy seemed to have the best explanation..(TIP #6):
http://web.archive.org/web/20040625103325/http://www.algonquincollege.com/its/support/pc/windows_efficiency.html
 
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No. They are NOT loaded into memory. The little picture representing them which takes up almost 0 memory is, just like if you had windows explorer open and were looking at a folder with the files. It would be ridiculous to design an OS to do that and I can assure you windows does not.

The only thing loaded to ram on startup is your startup programs and services and the OS. Vista and 7 do some ram caching but its transparent, doesn't affect startup, and its has nothing to do with the desktop. its also immediatly dumped if the memory is needed. All other files are on the harddrive until you access them.

If you feel like testing it stick a 2 gig file on your desktop and reboot and see if load speed and memory usage increase (they wont)
No. They are NOT loaded into memory. The little picture representing them which takes up almost 0 memory is, just like if you had windows explorer open and were looking at a folder with the files. It would be ridiculous to design an OS to do that and I can assure you windows does not.

The only thing loaded to ram on startup is your startup programs and services and the OS. Vista and 7 do some ram caching but its transparent, doesn't affect startup, and its has nothing to do with the desktop. its also immediatly dumped if the memory is needed. All other files are on the harddrive until you access them.

If you feel like testing it stick a 2 gig file on your desktop and reboot and see if load speed and memory usage increase (they wont)
 
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