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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...
Chris Lively is totally correct with this. I've had the same problem on at least five different computers on Windows 7, 8 and 10 including the brand new Windows 10 machine I've just purchased.
I think it's something to do with the display autodetect. I noticed on my laptop when I closed the lid and plugged in an external monitor the icons all rearranged themselves.
I've given up even trying to rearrange the icons on my desktop. IT's really annoying.
I'm using the old Desksave icon saver and restorer.
It seems to work OK on Win 7 64 bit, and hangs out in the tray.
I should contribute to this program some $$ !
Windows appears to *conditionally* respect your stated preferences. So if you turn off Auto-Arrange, Windows says fine, but oh wait, you just did a Windows Update. No, sorry, all bets are off now. We are entitled to completely rearrange your icons, because you just made a big change to your system so it's time to reevaluate all your preferences and, surely, you don't expect us to respect silly things like icon arrangements when installing a really important update, do you?
What are we to say to this other than, "thanks, mom"?
Default settings are decisively important for this very reason. No matter how much you configure your system (like, say, telling Windows to stop docking windows on the edge of the monitor screen), sooner or later, some update or app will erase your stated preferences and return the system config to what the Windows O.S. team thinks most people want or *should* want. It frequently has something to do with their pissing contest with Apple, not customer input or genuine customer advocacy.
