Dave-Platt%LADC@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA (Dave Platt) (03/17/86)
There are a couple of applications running around that clean up the Desktop file by selectively purging the APPL, ICN#, BNDL# and FREF resources. PurgeIcons is one such, and it works quite well for me; it's probably in the Info-Mac archives, and if it isn't I'd be glad to post a .HQX of it. It was written to run under MFS, and you might have to have it in your HD20's root directory to use it under HFS (I dunno, I haven't tried it under HFS). If I recall the content of one of Apple's recent tech notes (43???) correctly, the file-info text is stored in the Desktop file in resources of type INFO, formatted as if they were 'STR ' resources. The resource number for any particular file is generated by hashing the filename [and (as Steve Capps is alleged to have acknowledged) there is some slight chance that two filenames will hash to the same resource number... thus leading to confusion]. You could try copying the INFO resources out of your Desktop into an otherwise-empty resource file, trashing the Desktop, permitting the Finder to rebuild it, and then pasting the INFOs back in. Might work, might not... probably worth the attempt.