Desktop

So far I have been pretty happy with my MBP. Yes, the fan is loud and sometimes it sounds like we are going to warp speed but other than that I have no major beefs.

And so far I have been very happy with my MBP, post-Leopard upgrade. A few things are different, yes. But nothing earth-shattering.

But one thing has been getting on my nerves. It's little. It's piddly. But it's really annoying. Other than the "Macintosh HD" no other discs were appearing on my desktop. Network drives. Removeable drives. CD's. Nope, nada, zilch. Yes, they appear in the Finder sidebar, but that's a pain.


This was especially bothersome for network volumes that I access frequently. Instead of just clicking on the desktop icon for the volume, I had to open a Finder window, find the server name in the "Shared" list (which also "features" tiny labels instead of big friendly icons, and seems to show every system on my network that has Appleshare turned on whether I am logged in or not... but that's fodder for another post), then click on the right volume, and finally there is my list of files. What a waste. of. clicks.

I finally got sick of it today. So I Googled show mounted volumes on desktop leopard and found what I was looking for in short order. If you are having the same problem, here's how to fix this funky new default behavior (courtesy of James McDaniel's comment on a Scripting News post... thanks, James!)

1. If you aren't already in the Finder, hold down the Command key and press Tab until your happy Mac Finder icon is highlighted, then release both buttons.
2. In the command menu at the top of the screen click Finder
3. In the drop-down menu that appears, click Preferences
4. In the Finder Preferences window click General
5. Under Show these items on the Desktop check the boxes for (duh) the items that you want to show up.

Why did the default behavior change between Tiger and Leopard? Who knows... I am sure someone has a compelling reason why these items shouldn't be on the desktop. But as far as I am concerned, I like my network icons to be available without a lot of extra effort.