I'm coming more and more to believe that it's the desktop that makes the user experience far more than the distro, and there are a lot more desktops out there now than when you were formerly using Linux. One of the important differences between them is how they create and manage icons; it's easier on some than on others. You need to try different desktops until you find one that matches your preferences.

273 has a good point when he says that you wouldn't find Cinnamon any more friendly if you used it in a different distro. You can't blame the Debian team for something they didn't design or recommend.

Now if you had been grousing about a distro's default desktop and saying that they should have chosen a friendlier one, you might have had a good point.

Well thanks for that insightful comment Hazel ... I only came back on to figure out how to express my desire to remove myself from this forum, which you have reinforced.
As a movie I once saw expressed it " I shall not inflict myself upon you any further" or something like that.
Bye

^ back to windows 10, lol.

c'mon, MJ73, don't get offended so easily!

fwiw, i sympathize with anyone who says that cinnamon and *buntu suck.

the best way to solve your problem (i don't want to see that windows 10 icon anymore!) is to find the right distro (with the right default desktop) from here: https://distrowatch.com/search.php
if you say you like mate most, well try this search.
somehow i remember many people saying good things about pclinuxos, but that's really just a random pick from the above search.

MJ73,

Had you bothered to heed wagscat123's advice about using the MATE desktop on a Linux distribution which was designed for it (such as Linux Mint 18.1), then you would probably be a very happy bunny by now.

You would be able to drag icons and carry out those other actions as per your original post and live happily ever after.

Alas, twas not to be.

2 members found this post helpful.

tsk tsk