Short version: I had too many files on the desktop. Entire story: I store lots of files on my desktop until I get a chance to move them to a permanent location.  For the last month, I’ve been getting “desktop not responding” when I go into Windows Explorer to check my desktop files. I Googled “desktop not responding” and tried a few fixes everyone said worked for them.  Didn’t work for me. My computer guru came out and told me there’s something on the desktop causing the holdup.  To find out what it was, he created a folder on my external drive called “Windows10 computer desktop” and we dragged the files from the desktop of the Win10 computer to the new folder on my external drive. Apparently there were 8,838 of them.  Hmmm. Then I recalled the last 3 or 4 times I moved photos off my phone and onto the desktop. That was a few hundred each, Then I found I had 1,383 magazine layout files on the desktop, artwork etc. from my image setter.  One by one we moved the files, deleting them from the desktop. I ran CCleaner and 9053 mb was removed. That was the fix, I had way too many files on my desktop.