Sharing Desktop Icons

[dglarson]

I have been using Windows 7 for about 4 months now and there are some annoying things I would like to change.

On my old XP machine I had user accounts and each account had their own folders and desktop. There was also a public desktop (I think it was called ‘All Users’ or something similar) such that any icon in that public desktop would appear on each and every user’s desktop along with their unique desktop icons.
Under XP, it was easy to give each user access to a desktop icon by simply putting that icon in the Desktop folder under the ‘All Users’ folder.

In a similar manner I want to share some icons on my Windows 7 machine with all my users but I haven’t been successful at it so far.

When I log on as Administrator and click on the folders icon in the task bar, I see many folders. Under the ‘Local Disk (C’ folder I see, among others, these folders

Program Files
Program Files (x86)
Users

If I drill down into the Users folder I see the following

Default1
Public
User1
User2

(where user1 and user2 are the names of each user I have set up on the system).

Under Default1 I see a Desktop folder and in it are all the desktop icons for my administrator account.

However, I don’t see a Desktop folder under either Public, nor under User1, User2, etc. I created a ‘Public Desktop’ folder under the Public folder. I chose the name ‘Public Desktop’ because every other folder that was already under the Public folder had the word Public in front of it (e.g. Public Documents, Public Downloads, Public Music, etc.). So I then went to properties for the ‘Public Desktop’ folder to share it with everyone. While it allowed me to choose Everyone from the list of people to share with, when I clicked on Share, it gave me the message

“Your folder can’t be shared”

I tried again but selected individual users instead of Everyone and received the same message.

So I clicked on Advanced Sharing within the Properties window and went through its steps to create a share that Everyone could access. While it allowed me to do this without error, I still don’t see the contents of this Public Desktop folder on any of the users actual desktops.

Can anyone help with this?

If you reply, please be precise.

[veegertx]

C:\Users\Public\Desktop
Desktop is a hidden folder and you can change that by go to Organize, Folder and Search, Click View tab and you will click option Show Hidden Files and Folders.

[dglarson]

I tried veegertx's suggestion but after doing so, there still is no "Desktop" folder under the Public folder, i.e. under C:\Users\Public\

The Desktop folder under each individual user DID show up with this approach so I could simply copy the icons I want to share into each user's Desktop folder, but I would rather do it only one time under the Public folder, like I was used to doing under XP.

Did I miss something?

[veegertx]

I can see it plainly and also Favorites. If don't exist try create the Desktop folder in C:\Users\Public
I can see that it still retains the dulled out Hidden icon there though
then give permissions to everyone

[Medico]

Under Folder Options are the several options I am showing set as mine are set? This should allow you to see all folders and files.

[attachment=90782:FolderOptions.png]