setting defaults

[Online-CSG]

hi,
i started using gnu emacs last week and am obviously still on the steepest
bit of the learning curve. do you folks answer newbie questions? if you do
then i've got one for you.

i've checked out the help and the tutorials and but i'm still having
problems setting up my defaults. it looks like i should be setting
desktop-enable to a non-nil value, but i can't find desktop-enable in the
easy-customisation menu system.

i presume it's in there somewhere but i've been through alot of it if not
all without finding it. is there some speed method to find where a variable
is kept in all the different groups?

by the way, i couldn't find any archives for the list. are there any?

thanks!
Adam