Desktop icons move- multiple monitors

Anonymous

I am using Windows 7 64-bit on a laptop that I connect to an external monitor each day at work. Because the external monitor is higher resolution, the desktop extends beyond the area of the laptop monitor. When I arrange my icons on the external monitor desktop, and then later restart my computer without the external monitor, my icons get completely jumbled around. When I then plug in the external again, I have to spend 5 minutes rearranging my desktop. This is getting very aggravating. The only partially successful solution I've found so far is to hit F8 to change the monitor selection and then put the computer to sleep, rather than shutting down. This works sometimes, but is not optimal and occasionally fails. What I want to do is lock the icons in place so they don't move around when I change monitors. Any suggestions?

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Anonymous

Hi Genefreak,

This issue might occur if the “Auto Arrange Icons” option has been checked.

Step 1: Let’s try to uncheck this option first and then arrange the icons by grid and check if the issue persists.

Follow this step to do the same.

1. Right click on an empty space on the Desktop-> Click on View.

2. Uncheck the option “Auto Arrange Icons”.

3. Check the option for “Align the icons to grid”.

Check if the issue persists now.

Step 2: Also I would suggest you to reduce the resolution of the monitor so that it will not extend beyond the display area.

Change your screen resolution

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Change-your-screen-resolution

Additional reference on:

Work and play better with multiple monitors

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/work-and-play-better-with-multiple-monitors

Regards,

Divya R – Microsoft Support.

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42 additional answers

Anonymous

2013-05-08T18:27:50+00:00

What I don't get is why windows can't handle this much more intelligently than it does. I can think of several ways to handle the problem of "current icon layout doesn't fit into new smaller resolution" that are far better than "let's just jumble the icons around to wherever". The most mystifying thing is that the icons get jumbled even when pattern fits just fine into the new resolution.
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Anonymous

2014-06-30T14:39:00+00:00

Yes, that was the answer. Worked like a charm! Before that, it meant my desktop icons were useless. I have them back now -- thank you!
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Anonymous

2011-07-26T15:08:53+00:00

Does the reg edit fix work for XP?

One of my clients is having this issue and auto arrange is not checked...
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Anonymous

2013-05-22T12:52:52+00:00
hi guys, i'm using the solution that's recommended by editing the registry. Here's my situation
1. under "policies", subfolder "explorer" already exists with "NoDriveTypeAutoRun"
2. to add new DWORD, I have two options 32 or 64 bits. Which one do i use? it's a stupid question even though my computer is a 64bit system
3)for now i added both 32 and 64Dwords and assigned value of 0 (not sure if i should use hex or dec even though 0 is 0 is 0)
1. I rebooted and see no changes. Between laptop screen and monitor changes i still see my icons moving everywhere.
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