Shrinking or Enlarging Icons in Windows 7

I just stumbled across this Trick.  I'll ramble on a bit then give an executive summary at the bottom.  K?

Remember I'm using a laptop with a track pad.  I can scroll within lists using the right side of my track pad.  Your mileage may vary if you're using a mouse or a track ball... but play around, you can't hurt anything!

I have a beater laptop.  It is about 5 years old, and it has all my "stuff" on it.  I back up the important "stuff" to memory sticks and a beater of a server that I built out of dumpster diver equipment.  Anything I'm doing here on Windows 7 you can do as long as you have Windows 7, I'm not splitting the atom here...

Windows 7 out of the box has a shiny interface.  Rounded Edges and translucent title bars.  It's called the Aero Glass interface.   This may work on other interfaces, and should also work on Windows Vista.  Oh if you have Vista and you can get Windows 7 drivers for your PC you will want to upgrade, you will be happy you did.  You'll get a faster PC out of it and I have been consistently happy with Windows 7 even on this old Core Solo Acer Aspire 5610.

Salesmanship for Microsoft aside...

I was moving "stuff" off of my little lap-warmer and onto the memory stick as a part of doing the monthly finances and paying the AMEX card.  Once I balanced the check book, I thought that I had a couple recipes that needed to be off of the desktop.  I have a printer that I send everything to that turns all my printed pages to PDFs so I can store them forever and ignore them in big folders.   Put  the big folders onto a memory stick then lose the memory stick...

Oh wait, I seem to have a problem there.  Well they can go onto the server can't they?   Problem Solved!

Anyway on the desktop, I have some pictures.  They were Icons, you know the regular size.  Small enough to give you an idea of what they are but not big enough to be distracting.  As I was moving them along, I had the Control key (CTRL) held down and brushed against the right side of my track pad.  Since I was doing a down stroke the icons shrunk.

(Pulling the finger toward my belly - Hmmm got to do some road work...)

The reverse works too.  Select the desktop, hold control and do a swipe upward toward the back of the trackpad and they'll get larger.  This is useful in a folder with pictures.  I want to see just what they are but am too lazy to go into the view menu in Explorer... No Problem, Control, swipe and Oooh Big and Shiny!

This works within Explorer windows and it works on the desktop.  They work that way because in Windows they're actually the same thing, your desktop is nothing but an explorer window.

Ok, I promised you:

Executive Summary - Use a Track Pad Gesture to make  your icons bigger and smaller

Select a folder or the desktop. 
Click once inside the folder or desktop.
Hold down Control Key.
Swipe the trackpad along the right side and the icons will get larger or smaller:
    Larger - Push the finger tip along the right side of the Track Pad away from you
   Smaller - Draw the finger tip along the right side of the Track Pad toward you