Windows 7 desktop icons keep rearranging themselves

I had this issue of desktop icons rearranging themselves in Windows 7 whenever I would restart or reboot and what fixed my problem was the following:

1. Right click on the desktop.
2. Choose "Personalize".
3. On the left hand side of this control pannel, click "Change desktop icons."
4. There was a box that was checked next to "Allow themes to change deskop icons." When I unchecked this box and restarted my computer, all my desktop icons remained where I had them. I both shut down my computer completely and restarted my computer and after both times, all my desktop icons remained where they were.

Note: I had changed my original desktop background, so it seems that when this box was checked, Windows 7 would rearrange the icons based on how they thought the icons would best look with whatever desktop background you have.

Hope this helps.

Addendum: the more screen resolutions you use , the more likely this issue will surface or frequent often.

In my case this appeared after testing some games to see if they work, Counter Strike, Half Life, Portal, for some kids, which in turn used all kinds of resolutions when starting, and when moving back to desktop or crashing, then resolution got stuck. As I usually keep one resolution, this probably messed with those registry entries and created either mixed corrupted entries or overcrowded the list so that explorer ignored the older and important setting.

If you use multiple resolution make sure to stick with a few.

Clean up the rest.

There are several reasons, one is settings got corrupted or are being overlooked (too many) others being application plugins to Explorer which mess with either resolution or icon positioning.

The simpler of the answers are already posted by the so valuable MVPs and boy are they useless, because most people who have these issues probably already tried them. Talking about u-r-dummy answers.

In my case Windows 7 has more entries than it should about icon positioning and for some reason those settings got corrupted.

To be prepared, use an icon position saving software. I use X-Mouse Button Control as it has multiple uses but you could use other software, and save the settings of your icons as you'd like them.

1. Open Registry (Start > Run) and and navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\1\Desktop

Here is the location where your icon positions are stored listed based on screen resolution.

2. Delete all ItemPos####x####x### entries.
3. Rearrange icons or use the restoring software (much quicker).
4. After a while a new entry will be created by Explorer, one regarding the current screen resolution and icon positions. From here on, whatever got corrupted in the user Profile will be mended by this entry and possibly fix this problem.

A different fix includes getting Autoruns from Sysinternals and removing Explorer plugins until you see that the icon positions won't be affected anymore. Restore other plugins and keep testing. Once you'll find out the culprit either remove it or contact author for a inquiry into the matter.