Windows 7 desktop icons keep moving and changing size on reboot

It seems this problem is not Microsof's fault and is not due to an OS update but is Malware.  I installed Combofix (you can get it at download.com), which was recommended by others in this post and is solved the problem by removing Malware that neither Malwarebytes or Norton360 found.  However it is not for the faint of heart as is removes suspicous Malware without any prompting but at least it creates a restore point before it does this.  One thing to note is your Antivirus MUST be temporary disabled before running it.  It also does a reboot after removal and it creates a log file of what was removed.  I also notice problems with programs not running, which scared the heck out of me, until I manually rebooted the machine again. Good luck!

Windows Desktop Icons Moving Around Problem

I encountered this problem with Windows 7 (desktop icons moving around but not resizing themselves) and followed most of the straight forward suggestions in blogs, none of which solved the problem.

I decided to create a new user account to see if I had the same problem.   I didn’t have the problem with the new user account so I concluded that my former user account had somehow become corrupted.  I decided it would be a lot easier to replace the corrupted user account with a new one (and copy over all my folders and files) rather than figure out how to fix the corrupted user account.

The general process is likely well known but will summarize anyway:

·         Open Control Panel > select “Add or remove user Accounts” > select “Create a new account” and then follow the prompts.  Create the new User Account as the same user type as the corrupted user account.

The process of copying over the folders and files from the corrupted user account is a lot easier if you organize them first.  In my case, all my folders and files were organized into the following destinations. 

·         Desktop Folder

·         Favorites Folder

·         My Documents Folder

·         My Pictures Folder

Your files and folders might be organized differently so be sure to identify and organize them in your corrupted user account in a way that makes sense for you before copying them over (and eventually deleting them).

In my first step, I just copied over the folders and files from my Desktop and Favorites first and temporarily accessed files from the My Documents and My Pictures folders from the corrupted user account.

Once I was comfortable that everything was working (and I had everything backed up) I copied over all the folders and files from My Documents and My Pictures Folder to my new User Account and deleted the ones from the corrupted user account.   I kept the old user account for now but no longer use it.  I suppose at some point I’ll delete it.

I noticed on a Microsoft site some instructions on identifying “Hidden Files” as part of the process of recreating a User Account but it seemed to overcomplicate the process and not really be necessary.  But I’m including in my post here so there is a complete picture of what I learned, did and did not do.

Everything has worked great for over a month in my new user account – no moving of desktop icons!

Hope this helps someone who encounters this frustrating problem.

Finally!

Combofix seems to have fixed it for me as well! I can finally be organized again.