I was at a friends whose laptop had 20+ copies of most
of the icons on her desktop. The copies were easy to delete,
but after watching her do a few things, I can't figure how they
could have gotten there.

Is there a virus or spyware that creates copies of the icons??

Thanks

On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 19:13:47 -0500, marsha wrote:

> I was at a friends whose laptop had 20+ copies of most
> of the icons on her desktop. The copies were easy to delete,
> but after watching her do a few things, I can't figure how they
> could have gotten there.
>
> Is there a virus or spyware that creates copies of the icons??
>
> Thanks

Common problem with XP. If you move slightly (so many pixels) while
selecting files, the operating system interprets it as a request to copy.
One can adjust sensitivity of the mouse in Control Panel> Mouse or try
using TweakUI for XP to increase the number of pixels.

TweakUI is one of the Power Toys for XP:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...s/default.mspx

--
Sharon F
MS-MVP ~ Windows Shell/User

In addition to what Sharon posted.

This is caused by not having a steady hand.

By moving one's hand slightly which also moves the mouse and all the files
that are selected, Windows interprets this as dragging which copies the
files. Done this plenty of times myself. ;-)

You either have to practice or set the drag sensitivity differently.

Drag sensitivity specifies how far (in pixels) the mouse must
move with the button held down before the system decides
that you are dragging the object. Increase this value if you
find that you are dragging objects accidentally when you click
on them.

The only way to adjust the drag sensitivity that I know of is with TweakUI.

Download TweakUI here >>>

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p.../powertoys.asp

These are all the Mouse settings that can be set with TweakUI.

TweakUI
[+] Mouse

Menu Speed
The Menu Speed slider control sets the speed at which
cascading menus automatically open when you move the
mouse over them. The fastest setting causes them to open
immediately and the slowest setting is extraordinary slow.

To test the mouse setting, right-click the test icon.
-----

Double-click sensitivity
Double-click sensitivity specifies how close together two
mouse clicks need to be (in pixels) to be considered a
double click.

To test the double-click sensitivity, click twice on the test icon
with the left mouse button. If the two clicks registered as a
double-click, then the icon will change.
-----

Drag sensitivity
Drag sensitivity specifies how far (in pixels) the mouse must
move with the button held down before the system decides
that you are dragging the object. Increase this value if you
find that you are dragging objects accidentally when you click
on them.

To test drag sensitivity, try to drag the test icon with the
left mouse button. The icon will begin dragging when you
have moved the mouse the necessary distance.
-----

Hover
This is used to detect when the mouse hovers over the icon to get selected.
The size of the region is determined by the hover sensitivity in pixels.
-----

Wheel
This is used to control the number of lines when the mouse wheel is
scrolled. This can be either one page at a time or a particular number of
lines at a time.
-----

X-Mouse
The “Activation follows mouse” checkbox enables X-Mouse style window
activation. When X-mouse style window activation is enabled, you need only
move the mouse into a window in order to give it focus. Normally you must
click on a window in order to give it focus.


--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In news:lsZuf.18713$vL4.11352@bignews1.bellsouth.net,
marsha <m876354@hotmail.com> hunted and pecked:
> I was at a friends whose laptop had 20+ copies of most
> of the icons on her desktop. The copies were easy to delete,
> but after watching her do a few things, I can't figure how they
> could have gotten there.
>
> Is there a virus or spyware that creates copies of the icons??
>
> Thanks