My desktop shows, whatever I have defined as my internet Home Page,
under the desktop icons.  I can drag the border over so that it only
shows on a small portion of the screen but would like to just
eliminate it. I currently have my home page set to blank so it just
shows a blank white screen behind the icons. The computer seems to run
all right. I would just like to get rid of the garbage behind my
desktop icons. I run under Windows ME on a Dell desktop, 864 mhz, 256
mb.

ddbbdd...

It sounds as though you have your desktop set to 'active desktop',
which allows web page content to be displayed there. It also seems
that you have it set to 'my current home page'. 

If you right-click your mouse with the cursor in the icon area,
you can first uncheck 'my current home page', under 'active
desktop' to eliminate the home page content. Right-click again
and uncheck 'show web content', and you will have turned off
active desktop altogether, so that it will not show webpages.

Another option is to right-click the desktop and select 
'properties'. By default, this opens the 'background' tab of
the 'display properties', which allows you to select a 
background image which will appear behind the icons on your
desktop. You can also select 'none', which will leave you 
with a black background.

If you now go back and check 'show web content', without
checking 'my current home page', your desktop icons will
disappear, leaving a completely black desktop (or the 
image of your choosing from the 'background' tab).
To make them re-appear, you can either uncheck 'show web
content', or check 'show desktop icons' under the 'active
desktop' sub-menu.


This should familiarize you with the options available
in setting up your desktop to your satisfaction. I am
using Windows 2000 to arrive at these directions, however
I believe you will find them sufficiently similar to the
options in Windows ME, as well.

Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that
the answer cannot be improved upon by means of a dialog
established through the "Request for Clarification" process.

sublime1-ga

I have actually upgraded to XP and was able to correct the problem
through the control panel but your answer pointed me in the right
direction.  Thanks