Finder frozen after accidentally dropping 200 picture files on it

I was dragging 200+ picture files from a folder on my desktop to the trash when I missed the trash and they started filling my desktop with all their tiny icons...... it seems to be spending time trying to convert the icons to their thumb nail images..... it has piled loads of them on top of my hard drive icon..... nothing works...... I have let it sit there for over an hour and still no control..... I have force quit the finder but same problem on relaunch....... I have restarted but always the same problem....... I am panicing....... any help would be greatly appreciated........
iMac G4   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

Hello Windfrmr,
I just happened to notice from your post you've had the same problem I had just about 3 weeks ago. Only - I "exported" over 2,500 frames of a QT movie onto the desktop (just didn't notice I'd clicked on the wrong "target folder.")
Spent a long, anxious afternoon before hitting on a bit faster way of deleting those jpegs. Here it is, for what it may be worth to others with the same problem;
1. Switch to your "alternate user" account - whatever you've named it.
This will give you a completely clutter free desktop and working finder!
2. You will know ahead of time which level of permissions you have in this account - if you've set this account up with elevated permissions (the normal recommendation) - you will have no trouble navigating to "your" (clogged) desktop folder, opening it and deleting those files while working FROM your alternate account.
2.b If you have not given the alternate account admin privileges, then, when you attempt to open "your" desktop folder a dialogue will pop up telling you so. You can still use "Get Info" on the desktop folder to change permissions.
OS X will ask for your master password every so often during the deletion processs - which of course you should know or have ready access to.
The other advantage - as I recall - is that you can delete much larger "batches" of files without stopping the Trash from working (I was deleting at least 20 at a time) - but you should still empty trash after each group of files is deposited there.
---- So there it is: a 2nd way to get out of this rather scary bind.
Regards,
macnoel

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