I don't. Not only because I don't bother with the traditional desktop metaphor much these days, but also because of launchers like dmenu, NWG-Grid, or what have you.

The way I see it, desktop icons are a relic of a system paradigm that was created out of fear of stepping on the toes of another paradigm.

So? What do you think of the iconography of desktop icons and their use in this modern age?

I hate change (usually for the worse), so of course I still use desktop icons. imo this design should never be changed, not in a hundred years.

Okay, but the thing is...that screenshot I posted is from something based on a 30 year old desktop.

I prefer clean desktop with a stunning high-quality background picture. I also use blank pages with nice backgrounds as new-tab pages in all my browsers.

Have not been using desktop icons since 2009, when Win 7 was released ( thanks to a new taskbar ). And now I have much more options to customize user interface on KDE. :)

op wants to find out if gamers use desktop icons so they can decide to remove them if true. that's what they're up to. it's the next target of the open source corporate backed 'movement' of useless, deliberately antagonist decisions.

Pff, cute. Did you even see the image I attached?

I rarely even see the desktop background. Let me check, it got browsers, writer & calc, and that's pretty much all. But it's nice to have options, I guess.
I don't think it's the feature in dire need of retirement, most users prefer icons and don't like those old CLIs and new launchers all that much.

I love desktop icons but I also love clean desktop (more or less), so I put only the most important ones plus the currently active games, and others are placed in folders.

Oh mine is very cluttered at the moment with various PDFs that I still have to sort. Personally I find it very useful still, for immediate access to programs I use all the time, and as a temporary (though often not so temporary) place to put files to be sorted into other folders. I haven't tried to step outside of the paradigm, but I have to say I struggle to see the benefit of trying, beyond having something that is a bit nicer to look at.

icons are the best thing every invented for computers, and i mean THE BEST THING
i clicity them daily , they are the most useful feature , can open files or start apps or even web pages , very very good
can even put them into folders no i only check images from those who i trust

My desktop is full of icons.
I have icons for everything from various games, to Word documents, and shortcuts to programs like Irfanview. Icons are so useful! Cambrey, I really love your desktop picture. Can I ask where you got it?

oh i would like to know that too , i like it nice wallpaper indeed
btw why winamp when there is foobar2000?

I don't think the age has anything to do with it. I'm pretty sure all of my practices are from a bygone era. I also think desktop icons predate MS Windows, so I don't see them as you do. Back when I had at most 10 or so games installed and playing on my machine at once, they seemed like a good idea, but they are impractical when dealing with more. In fact, I no longer even iconify windows, so my desktop is just a pure background (repeating pattern similar to yours). I just leave my display plastered with terminal and editor windows (and the occasional other stuff on the side, literally, using my virtual desktop [olvwm/fvwm-style, not dtwm-style]). For games, I launch using the command I assigned to it from a terminal, although I also maintain a hierarchical xdg menu, sort of. I also maintain a database of games containing the command names I assigned to them, which I prefer to look up on the rare occasion I forget the name rather than searching the menu. I suppose I could add a button to the database interface to launch the game directly from there, but it wouldn't be added to my shell history, and I just don't use it that often.

Fair do to you.
Speaking of FVWM, I'm kind of amazed the linage it holds compared to most WMs. [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fvwm_family.svg]Using a FVWM derivative is how workspaces finally clicked with me.[/url]