My new Acer Aspire One netbook came pre-installed with Windows 7 Starter and lots of other promotional software.

Some of them (like Norton and McAfee) I uninstalled immediately. Others (like the Barnes & Notble Desktop Reader and the Times Reader) I would like to keep until I see whether they can be useful).

Regardless, I would like to remove their desktop icons (making them accessible through the Start menu only), in such a way that when I add another user account, these desktop icons will not appear on that user's desktop.

But when I checked my desktop folder C:\Users\an00b\Desktop I noticed that it's empty!

So my desktop's folder is empty, but the icons are still visible on the Desktop. How is this possible? Where are they stored in Windows 7?

These applications fill my tiny netbook's desktop and when I wanted to delete