Windows 7 desktop icon's keep moving

Anonymous
2009-10-24T13:28:57+00:00

Hi there, I have re-arranged my desktop and moved the task bar to the left side of the screen. Therefore I have moved my desktop icons and my gadgets over to the right side of the screen and lined them up in order to what they are, (ie: MS Office icons in one row, excel files I use on a regular basis, Adobe program and so-on and so-on). Everytime I re-boot my PC about 2/3rds of the icons keep moving back over to the left side of the screen and arrange from top to bottom.

I have checked and un-checked align icons by grid and it makes no difference.

I didn't have this issue in VISTA but when I installed Windows 7 I have this issue.

Any suggestions here on how I can stop the icons from moving??

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Anonymous
2009-11-08T14:51:55+00:00

Had the same problem. Please go to this link, there are separate programs for 32 & 64 bit Windows (I have 64 bit, that works fine, cannot know about the 32 bit, but....):

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/save-and-restore-desktop-icon-layout-in-windows-vista/

Al;though designed for Vista, it is fine with Windows 7 Ultimate. Might do for XP, haven't needed to use it there.

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-06-25T08:35:01+00:00

    That bug is annoying but the solution is unbelievably simple...

    uncheck "Align icons to grid"

    check it when you want to align your icons but always uncheck it everytime after use .

    Please credit me if this solution works for you.

    Clementimuzio

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-07-15T02:25:03+00:00

    I had this problem w/Windows 7-32Bit and found that if I right-clicked on desktop and then clicked "Refresh" the icons stayed in place after a reboot. You'll have to do that anytime you add/move icons to keep them 'locked' in place. Cheers.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-08-18T14:28:46+00:00

    I used the install for 64 bit as advised by CatlyAlanand it worked perfectly - the icons drove me crazy keep moving around previous to this!!

    Thanks for the info CatlyAlanmuch appreciated.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-09-03T05:47:14+00:00

    A lot of suggestions here to install 3rd party software to fix what used to be a standard feature. I really don't see how this bug got past betatesting because arranging your icons must be one of the most common practices anyone does when setting up their computer. (Off topic, but I also can no longer configure the power and sleep buttons on my keyboard.)

    I can only surmise that no-one at Microsoft uses Windows 7 because this minor bug is so irritating I'm ready to switch to a new OS. If I worked at Microsoft and I had to deal with this every day the team lead responsible would be sitting at my computer putting my icons back where they belong every day until this bug is fixed.

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