A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a

desk A desk or bureau is a piece of furniture with a flat table-style work surface used in a school, office, home or the like for academic, professional or domestic activities such as reading, writing, or using equipment such as a computer. Desks oft ...

(often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various computer terms: *

Desktop computer A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply ...

, a personal computer designed to fit on a desk **

Pizza box form factor In computing, a pizza box is a style of case design for desktop computers or network switches. Pizza box cases tend to be wide and flat, normally in height, resembling pizza delivery boxes and thus the name. This is in contrast to a tower ...

, a design of

computer case A computer case, also known as a computer chassis, is the enclosure that contains most of the hardware of a personal computer. The components housed inside the case (such as the CPU, motherboard, memory, mass storage devices, power supply unit ...

Desktop metaphor In computing, the desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact more easily with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it is t ...

in computing, the area behind the "windows" in a graphical user interface for the operating system **

Desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphic ...

, software that provides a comprehensive computer user interface ** Remote desktop software, software that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely on one system *

Client (computing) In computing, a client is a piece of computer hardware or software that accesses a service made available by a server as part of the client–server model of computer networks. The server is often (but not always) on another computer system, in ...

, sometimes referred to as a ''desktop'' to distinguish a Client from the Server * Desktop (word processor), a program for Sinclair ZX Spectrum and compatible computers

See also