Fences – A Desktop Icon Organizer from Stardock
Fences is an amazing desktop organizing software to maintain a clean and tidy desktop. It works on Windows XP, Vista and even Windows 7! Post installation, it presents a wizard that lets you choose between using their built-in container layouts and also it tries to detect and group icons on its own (of course, you can change it and customize it to your heart’s content).
The containers, called ‘fences’, can be resized and dragged anywhere on the screen and can also be locked. It has also got a neat options dialog where you can further tweak the settings for each and all fences. Fences also lets you hide your grouped icons altogether. Check out the official screenshots†. Link to official download page below.
Fences™
Download Fences 0.96 (roughly 6MB)
† Sorry for not posting screenshots this time. I’ve just finished building my computer and its only a barebone machine for now. So I’ve linked to the original page for people who wanna check it out. Thanks to Lifehacker for the original post.
I ve got this XP SP1. Will it work on that? Coz I am having some problem installing it.
@Nithya: I suppose it works on SP1. Can you tell me what error you got? I might be able to help you with it!
i tried installing fences it landed on an error sayin
“The application failed to initialize properly(0xc0000135).Click OK to terminate”
@Venkat: Looks like you don’t have the .NET framework installed. Download the latest version from here.
Rockzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Hello, Pras.
I’ve just discovered your blog thanks to this site. I think you write and provide very interesting stuff!
I have a question related to “Fences”, and I’ll be very grateful if you could answer me.
I know that the more icons someone has in his/her Widows XP desktop, the slower his/her computer is, when performing some tasks, or when starting the session, and so on. I mean, desktop icons consume some kind of memory (I don’t know which kind of it). The moral I got was: the less desktop icons, the best for your computer (and for you).
Can “Fences” help to solve that problem? I mean, if you “group” icons in a fence, does it reduce the amount of memory spent, or does it improve PC performance??
Thank you in advance.
@Vicent: Thanks for the comment! AFAIK, having many desktop icons does not really affect system performance drastically. I hope you have some decent RAM. And no, Fences will definitely not improve performance in any way. It is only a productivity boosting tool. Remember that Fences too needs memory to run!
Hello, I read a review from last year that icons cannot be resized. Has that been added now?
Is there a way to put the new downloads in to their own fence automatically on download?
Does the program still drop or hide your icons?. This was also in a review from 2009.
One other question…. If I purchase the latest version (Fences Pro) do I need to buy updates when they come out or are they automatic?
Thanks. Love your site.
Bree
@BREE: I don’t use the Pro version now, so I’m not sure. You can always head to the ‘Features’ page to check if it has all these features you’ve asked for. And yes, updates will be free!