Why does Remote Desktop redraw desktop icons over and over?

>I'm using Windows XP's Remote Desktop feature to log into a remote
>Windows XP machine over a slow modem connection. Surprisingly, it's
>actually usable, but there's one significant annoyance: whenever
>Remote Desktop draws desktop icons it draws and erases them all
>several times in succession, which takes many seconds. Does anyone
>know why this is happening, and whether there's any way to prevent
>this? The best workaround I've found is to keep a maximized empty
>Notepad window open at all times - this prevents me from ever seeing
>desktop icons, but is hardly an attractive solution. Thanks for any
>help!
>
>adam