Turn off the Desktop Wizard
Microsoft has a thing about keeping the Desktop in Windows XP clean. If you don’t use an icon that’s on the Desktop for a while, you’ll get nagged to clean up. You can tell the wizard to go away but it’ll be back in 60 days unless you turn the thing off. Personally, I feel quite capable of keeping my Desktop neat all by myself so I disable this example of the Microsoft nanny. Right-click the Desktop and choose “Properties” from the context menu. Click the Desktop tab and then the “Customize Desktop” button. Remove the check from the box labeled “Run Desktop
Cleanup Wizard every 60 days.”