Having Show desktop icon in the quick launch on the taskbar helps a lot to switch to the desktop screen easily. If the quick launch on your taskbar does not have show desktop icon then you can add it as per the below steps.
The icons in the quick launch are nothing but shortcuts to the original programs location. So to add desktop icon we need to create a shortcut to the desktop folder. Right clicking on the quick launch shows the same menu as the right click on elsewhere in the taskbar. There is no option to add shortcuts to quick launch in the context menu. The solutions is to add the desktop shortcut in the folder where quick launch items are stored. Let’s see this in detail.
Open your quick launch folder. This is located at %appdata%MicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick Launch You can give this path in Run window and open the above location in explorer. Or alternatively you can give the path C:Documents and SettingsYourLoginidApplication DataMicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick Launch. Both refer to the same location.
Now right click in the explorer window and click ‘New’ and then ‘Shortcut’
and specify the target as %userprofile%Desktop in the location of the item field in the create shortcut wizard. Or alternatively you can specify C:Documents and SettingsYourLoginidDesktop, both refer to the same location.
That’s all you need to do. Now you can see Show Desktop icon in the quick launch.
Any other methods to add Show Desktop to quick launch?
Instead of the above steps you can use just drag and drop method if you already have a desktop shortcut created somewhere in your directories. Just open the directory where the desktop shortcut is located and drag the shortcut icon and drop it in the quick launch.
Desktop Keyboard Shortcut:
For users who like to use keyboard rather than mouse there is a keyboard shortcut to switch to desktop screen. Just press Windows + D combination(hold windows key pressed and then press D) and it will switch to desktop. If you press it again it will switch back to the opened windows.