A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a

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

(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 as desktop, is a personal computer designed for regular use at a stationary location on or near a desk (as opposed to a portable computer) due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuratio ...

, a personal computer designed to fit on a desk *

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 ...

, a style of graphical user interface modeled after a physical work surface **

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 graphi ...

, software that provides a comprehensive computer user interface ** .desktop file, providing configuration details for a program in a desktop environment **

Remote desktop software In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely from one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a sma ...

, software that provides remote access to a computer's desktop *

Client (computing) is a computer that gets information from another computer called server in the context of client–server model of computer networks. The server is often (but not always) on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the servi ...

, sometimes referred to as a desktop to distinguish the client from a server *

Desktop (word processor) Desktop is a WYSIWYG word processor for computers ZX Spectrum and compatible (e. g. Didaktik). It is a word processor of Czech origin, its author is Tomáš Vilím who used the name ''Universum'' as his author name. Distributor of the progra ...

, a program for the ZX Spectrum

See also