I can't for the life of my figure out how to have desktop icons with out text.

None of that No Alt+255 or Alt+0160, or third party software will do.

I found this thread:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=224324

But it's like friggin rocket science.

So the question remains, Desktop Icons without text, can a n00b do it?

Thanks.

http://herby.virtualplastic.net/files/SCCU1.08Setup.exe

from the link you provided

Yeah I tried that, did you? Because it was also like rocket science. If you can tell me how to use it, I would be very grateful.

I don't understand why this seemingly simple task is so incredibly involved.

Why is it complicated ?
'coz windows' desktop is not made for having textless icons on it. (in other words, it has not been developped with this target in mind)

You can use an alternative shell ; a dock ; a widget engine ; etc... there are lots of progs for doing that...

Oh I know there are a bunch of apps that'll do it. (DesktopX, IconX etc.) but I also know it can be done without them (note my first post). So I'd rather do it without running extra software.

/me shrugs

Okay. So you want the complicated way. You'll need to learn "rocket science". It will not be easy. You will get errors. It will not work. You'll have to fix errors and learn again.
Then, it will work.

Sorry, there's no other way. (there's easy-to-use-with-only-drag-n-drop software, but you don't want it )
Read again, and again, and again your link at neowin, and you'll succeed.
Hey, i'm pretty sure you can ask them for some help

++

Alright

I was just trying to make sure that there wasn't some other (simpler) way.

I would hate to start hacking away at my registry and then find out all I had to do was run some patch or something.

/me slinks away

You must not be reading correctly :

Absolutely you can. Desktop Icon Toy can remove the desktop icon text, it also can remove the icons and only keep the icon text, dance desktop icons and so on. You can find it from http://www.idesksoft.com/