Stick a terminal window on the desktop

Question

For some reason I need to get rid of the default desktop and instead I need a terminal to be in the place of the desktop. As an example if I'm using Windows my desktop looks as shown in below.

But, I don't need to see the desktops icons & wallpaper, and what I need to see is the desktop as the screenshot shown in below. (Note: Here I have used Windows Terminal).

So, then when I right-click my taskbar and select Show the desktop or press Win + D shortcut, it should come to this Terminal Desktop instead of that ordinary desktop! Note that I still need to see the taskbar (I don't need a complete DOS feeling :D).

How can I archive this?

I was thinking that,

May be stacking the items as this, will be a solution.

(Note that, this stacking should be persistent.)

How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

You cannot remove the desktop without also removing the Start Menu and the taskbar, however, you can obscure it. The tool to use is the free AutoHotkey.

The following example script will do the following:

• Hide the "Show Desktop" button
• Start Windows Terminal as maximized over the desktop
• Set it to topmost over all other windows (remove this part if you use windows that are not launched from Terminal, but windows launched from Terminal will inherit the topmost attribute)
• Map Win+D to activate Terminal instead

This is the script itself:

; hide the "Show Desktop" button
Control, Hide,, TrayShowDesktopButtonWClass1, ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd ahk_exe explorer.exe
; run terminal maximized
Run "wt.exe",,Max
; wait 500 millisecods
Sleep, 500
; set terminal window to topmost
Winset, Alwaysontop, , ahk_class CASCADIA_HOSTING_WINDOW_CLASS

; remap Win-D to activate the terminal instead of the desktop
#d::WinActivate, ahk_class CASCADIA_HOSTING_WINDOW_CLASS

After installing AutoHotKey, put the above text in a .ahk file and double-click it to test. You may stop the script by right-click on the green H icon in the traybar and choosing Exit. To have it run on login, place it in the Startup group at C:\Users\USER-NAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.

Useful AutoHotkey documentation:

• List of Keys
• Hotkeys

Answer 2

The Desktop is not just the Desktop, it's apart of the Windows Shell [explorer.exe], and you cannot remove it in the manner you're looking - the only two ways to disable it are:

• Killing process explorer.exe
  (also kills the Taskbar, Start Menu, and File Explorer in the process)
• Using a third-party Windows Shell replacement, however there are no modern ones
  (all existing ones resemble the Windows XP or 7 GUI)

Possible Solutions:

• @music2myear's suggestion of Rainmeter would allow you to alter the Desktop appearance, something you may be interested in since you could embed a terminal onto the Desktop's wallpaper using a dark gray wallpaper (such as RGB 40 40 40)
• Assign the +D combo to default to the terminal via AutoHotKey