A desktop icon is a symbol with text under it that is displayed on the desktop. The desktop is what is displayed when you log in on most operating systems. Common desktop icons are "My Computer" "Recycle Bin" "My documents" shortcuts to programs that are installed. By double clicking on an icon you can open the folder or program related to it.
Desktop icons are the most commonly recognized icons by most people. They are used to convey purpose of an available function on a computer. On a very graphic oriented Windows environment such as Windows XP the common desktop icons you might see are "My Computer", "Recycle Bin", and various file folders with labels.
Other operating systems such as Macintosh, and Linux desktop environments like KDE also use desktop icons in much the same way but the extension, resource or file name suffix differ. Generally icons from one operating system would need to be converted to work on a different OS.
right click on desktop and properties desktop customize desktop and select icon to view it on your desktop and click OK
When you remove an icon from the desktop on a Mac, you do not put the application in the trash only the desktop icon.
You cannot use the website icon on the desktop. You can always add the bookmarks, which are same as icon of page.
You may be referring to a path or shortcut icon on the desktop that points to a specific file or program.
The small pictures on the Desktop are called as `ICONS`.
Shortcuts
In my perspective, I don't really think there is a difference. Icon is the little picture thingys you find out the desktop. When you click shortcut for something, it will appear the same as an icon on the desktop. So I don't really think there's a difference.
If you right click on your desktop and go down to new and click on shortcut then go to browse and find what you what for an icon in your screen, you click okay then next then finish you have the icon on your desktop.
In the Windows operating system, desktop icons are shortcuts to programs that you can execute. To find out the program associated with an icon, right click on the icon and select Properties in the menu. In the dialog that pops up check the Location field.
double click the icon
A signal of printer display on the desktop
Recycle Bin. This should be shown on the Desktop.