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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
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.

Was this answer helpful?

80+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

71 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2011-10-18T20:40:15+00:00

    I am also struggling with this. 

    One other thing I have noticed is that occasionally updates to Adobe Acrobat seem to cause all my desktop settings to disappear. The desktop goes to black.  I have to reset to Windows Classic & then re-create all my desktop shortcuts.

    THIS IS ANNOYING!!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2011-08-31T15:20:15+00:00

    HOW DO I REARRANGE  my desktop icons?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2011-08-13T03:33:11+00:00

    Educationalist wrote:

    After arranging your icons, right-click the desktop and click 'Refresh'. That'll lock the current icons in place. [F5 also works if the desktop is the active window.]

    Caveat: If you change a document with MS office it'll delete the old icon and generate a new one. I use OpenOffice which seems to leave the icons intact.

    Educationalist, I think you are onto something, as the following procedure worked for me:

    (Note:  I have the Save and Restore Desktop Icon Layout utility installed, the one that uses a right-click on the desktop, *not* the one that requires a right-click on the 'Computer' link in the Start Menu.  [See: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm, line 188, click on right side to download iconlayout.zip, which contains the files layout.dll, and iconlayout.vbs.  The vbs file updates the registry automatically, which allows the utility to be used by right-clicking on the desktop, not the  'Computer' link in the start menu.]  I highly recommend that utility, having used it under Windows Vista (32 bit) as well as XP.  Occasional icon-location 'flubs' occur for various reasons, and if one has lots of icons it can be a pain to manually reset their positions on the desktop [if one can even remember where they all belong!].  [See CatlyAlan's post of November 8, 2009, above, for a link to a similar utility]. )

    I'm running Windows Vista (32 bit) with Service Pack 2.  For some unknown reason, my icons were being reset to one 'mass' on the left side of my desktop, and my usual solution, using the Save and Restore Desktop Icon utility followed by rebooting, was not helping.  Also, resetting the icons with the Save and Restore Desktop Icon utility, followed by pressing F5, returned all the icons to the left side of the desktop once again.

    Educationalist's solution, above, began: "After arranging your icons...".  The key seems to be that arranging the icons must be done *by hand* (not with the Save and Restore Desktop Icon utility)!

    I discovered that by pressing F5, which moved all icons to the left of my desktop.  I then moved one icon to a slightly different location, and again pressed F5 to refresh.   When I did this, I noted that the one icon that I moved remained in its new location.  I then restored all the icons using the Save and Restore Desktop Icon Layout utility to their original locations that I use.  When I pressed F5 again, nothing moved.

    This solution worked for me, I hope it works for you, too!

    aboutblank

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2011-08-01T14:51:29+00:00

    I have the same problem, I reboot window 7, all my icons are arrange to left side of the screen.  I found, my problem, was I didn't install the video driver (Nivdia driver), I was using the default  microsoft driver. that will keep arrange the icon to left, every time.   Once, I got the video driver install, everything work just fine.

     

    I had the same problem of Windows 7 desktop icons keep moving and going to left by themselves everytime I undock (which is no longer a feature in Windows 7 anymore, may be causing part of the issue) from the docking station, which is connected to external display and/or at every restart.

    Updating the display drivers from nVIDIA website to latest (from 257.29 to 275.33 for me) solved the issue and I did a verify it by changing different icons around a few time and restarting again. So far things work well...

    Thanks everyone :)

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments