The personal computer that sits on a user's desk.

The screen background on which windows, icons, and dialog boxes appear, e.g. what you see when your programs are all closed or minimized. If you save or copy shortcuts, files or folders to your Desktop, they are saved on your local hard drive and are not backed up. See Saving Your Shortcuts.

This is what you will see initially after logging in to a Windows PC. Icons on a desktop represent files, folders, or applications and can be arranged and deleted to suit individual requirements. Public PCs at the University of Kent are set up slightly differently, so that they display a log on screen first, then the desktop with default icons that can not be removed.

The empty space on your screen when all windows are closed, containing Macintosh HD, Dock, and any disks you have inserted. The Desktop is actually a folder called Desktop found in your Home folder. Each user account has its own personalized desktop. You can put aliases of files and folders on the Desktop for easy access.