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Every few days, all the icons on my Win7 desktop rearrange themselves. Usually they move to the left edge of the screen. I laboriously move all the icons back to where I like them, and 3-10 days later, they all shift left again. I've found no pattern or event that might cause this -- but it's very annoying!
I've got Win7 build 7100 running on a Dell Latitude D830 laptop. Totally standard hardware and very little non-Microsoft software. In short, it's a pretty clean system.
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.
To supplement Reyas.M.I.'s answer, Under View is the option to select the icon size, Auto arrange icons and Align icons to grid. The Sort by option includes Name, Size, Item type and Date modified. I suggest you check both View and Sort by.
Corrine, Microsoft MVP (Consumer Security). This posting is provided "AS IS" without warranty, and confers no rights.
Check whether "Auto Arrange" checked. To check this, right click on desktop and select "Arrange icons by".
I hope this helps.
Thanks and Regards, Reyas...
For years now, I have suffered with Microsoft's op systems screwing up my desktop every few days or weeks, and putting all the icons in an unsorted heap.
I have been getting by, by using DeskSave, a fine ~ XP utility. I have to send them money!
DeskSave works great, - it saves the icon locations when I exit , and reloads them when I boot the desktop.
And still, from time to time, FOR NO REASON, Windows will blink all the icons on the desk, that is,
reload/ rewrite them I guess, which is often a prelude to screwing them up.
And yes, I found 2 instances of desktop.ini on the desktop, and assumed they were worthless Microsoft crapola, and deleted them ! LOL. I stand by my case that they are useless !
MJ, if you would stop deleting those desktop.ini (SYSTEM FILES), maybe you wouldn't have so much trouble. Just move them to a corner of your desktop and leave them alone!
By the way, I have been using Iconoid (from sillysot.com), (Do NOT download from other sites). It's free, and it has always restored my icon locations when I want it to. (My icons move around when I connect to different screen size monitors.)
For years now, I have suffered with Microsoft's op systems screwing up my desktop every few days or weeks, and putting all the icons in an unsorted heap.
SINCE I rely on the exact location of all my desktop icons to prompt me to to things,
and my 28" desktop is 60% full of icons,
and since I cannot rely on their OS's to keep them in the same place,
I have been getting by, by using DeskSave, a fine ~ XP utility. I have to send them money!
BTW, is there a way to ELIMINATE all of the file permission **** in Win-7 and Win-8? I don't care about permissions, I am the sole user of my PC !
Sometimes, the damn OS tries to keep me from putting files on my own \Programs x86\ folder ! Its nuts !
DeskSave works great, - it saves the icon locations when I exit , and reloads them when I boot the desktop.
It bypasses the Microsoft crud.
And still, from time to time, FOR NO REASON, Windows will blink all the icons on the desk, that is,
reload/ rewrite them I guess, which is often a prelude to screwing them up.
And yes, I found 2 instances of desktop.ini on the desktop, and assumed they were worthless Microsoft crapola, and deleted them ! LOL. I stand by my case that they are useless !
This bug has plagued me since Window v 3.3 which was the first Windows that sort of worked.
BTW, Win-7 only runs well if you have a SSD like a Samsung EVO 512 GB for drive C.
Otherwise, even on an i7, Win-7 runs like a pig.
And... don't even mention Win-8... It's like trying to work on a coloring book ...
I vote for Win-98 SE with USB.
Now, THAT was a real OS.
MJ
I was seeing the same issue. Turns out that "desktop.ini" was on my desktop twice. Not desktop.ini & desktop(2).ini, or anything like that, but 2 files with the exact same name. Of course hidden & system files need to be un-hidden in order to see this...
THIS IS THE SOLUTION FOR ME. I've tried all other solutions, save for creating the Exporer key in registry before I tried this.
I copied my desktop icons from my old desktop. I guess that's where the second desktop.ini came from.
You'll need to remove one of those two. In order to know which desktop.ini file to delete, I tested each one. I deleted one, and moved my icons, then I refreshed (Right click on the desktop -> Refresh) the desktop. If the icons position are moved after the refresh, I restored the deleted desktop.ini and delete the other one. I repeated the same test.
This solved the problem for me. As per an earlier suggestion, I first tried deleting both desktop.ini files at the same time but that changed nothing. Tried it with and without "align to grid" checked. I also tried the registry fix and that did not help at all either. And I never had either "auto arrange icons" or "allow themes to change desktop icons" checked. I also never use multiple monitors.
This was the only solution that worked for me. Keep "align to grid" unchecked, btw. When I checked it as a test, some of my icons would move on a reboot while others stayed in their proper place. And for anyone who doesn't know, you have to go into your folder options and uncheck "hide protected system operating files" under the "View" tab in order to see these mischievous files in the first place. You can access folder options via the main menu of any folder you are inside of (Tools>Folder options...). Then when you are done, go back into folder options and check it again.
So thanks to ixorairis for sharing a solution here. Too bad I had to waste hours of my time researching a solution before I came upon this fix. This seems like a bug in Windows 7, and Microsoft should not be allowing two files with identical names to be in the same location.
