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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...
While the above has worked for me under normal circumstances it doesn't do any good when you change screen resolutions. When you change back to your normal resolution the desktop icons will still be all screwed up.
But here's a neat little FREE tool that will help keep your desktop icons organized under any circumstances. Its called "IconRestorer" and it Works on 32 and 64-bit systems (XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and Windows 7)
It can be downloaded for free at http://www.blogsdna.com/3524/backup-restore-desktop-icons-position-on-windows-7-vista-xp.htm
This solved my icon problems. I hope it works as well for you!
enjoy
I have a new system preloaded with Windows 7. I have configured my desktop with the display I want with small icon size and align to grid. Autoarrange is not selected. When the automatic upgrade updates my system (which is often until I get caught up) and the system is rebooted as a result of the update, the icons revert to medium size and as a consequence are rearranged. How do I stop this from happening? I never had this problem with XP, which I have used for years and still do on my other machines.
Thank you for your answer. I had the exact same issue, dual desktop.ini files named the same name. By going to folder options and setting the two options to display system and hidden files, I found 2 desktop.ini files on my desktop, removed them and this fixed the problem.
After initially going through several frustrating re-arrangements of the icons, attempts to set them back and having them a tossed mess on the next reboot, this fixed the problem. I might also add that my loss of icon arrangement and double desktop.ini appeared right after I re-sized the partition containing Windows 7. So this might be a good final check point after resizing a partition that contains Windows 7, to set visible the hidden and system files and delete all occurrences of desktop.ini. (Not sure what all the desktop.ini files are for - Win 7 seems infatuated with them :-). I deleted both of the ones on the main desktop and it didn't seem to cause any harm and neither have reappeared but my icons are staying positioned now (with AutoArange NOT checked and Allign to Grid CHECKED). Not sure if any of this is related to my NVIDA dual monitors or not, but the problem is fixed for the moment.
