Windows 11 Desktop icons rearrange and re-sort themselves

I just installed Windows 11 a few days ago. I am frustrated that I cannot get the icons on my desktop to stay in the same position from one day to the next and from one hour to the next. I cannot find the icons I need.

I have many icons spread out over two monitors, so it is a real mess now. But in Windows 10 this worked very well for me.

New Icons that I put on the desktop completely disappear the next day.

It returns to the old icons that I used to have, but all mixed up.

I have tried many things suggested here in this thread. Nothing works.

I am shocked that Microsoft would allow such a useful item, icons on the desktop go completely unsupported.

What kind of people at Microsoft would not care and release such a defect?

My solution is to copy the pic & properties of the icons to a word document and then click on one as needed. What a primitive hack!

This will take less time than hunting for and rearranging icons every morning!

The desktop is rendered useless!

I know, you are going to suggest a third party software solution, but I cannot install any software on my government computer here at work.

I'm doing the same thing. Takes me 15 minutes every couple days to put them back where they belong. Wish I knew what was causing it. Just happened after I did an update a few days ago.

I finally found and solved the problem with the rearranging icons. I got a Blink Outdoor 4 camera set for Christmas and the way to set it up required thru a cell phone app, which I did, and it worked fine but I wanted the systems also be setup on my computer. One way was to download the Bluestacks - App Player for Windows and setup the system via Google Play app, which I did, and it worked.

When I restarted my computer the next day, the rearranging problem started to show up. The way I solved the problem, was to remove two of the three files created by Bluestacks leaving only the Bluestacks App Player and that solved the problem.

Hope this info will also solve your problem, Steve.

Am happy that you were able to solve your issue, but in my case I didn't install any new software. It just started to happen after Win11 did an update about a week ago. I manually adjusted all my desktop icons the next morning which was difficult because it would not let me put icons close together without auto-arranging them even though auto-arrange was turned off, as was align to grid. So I ended up having to raise all my icons up about a row, leaving an inch of blank real estate at the bottom. But that was the only way it would let me put them clustered together.

The second time it happened I did use a TV as a 4th monitor, which made the resolution flicker. In the past (with Win10) it would flicker and mess up my desktop icons while the TV was on, but as soon as I turned it off they would rearrange back to their original positions. With Win11 they got messed up with the introduction of the 4th screen but never went back when the TV was turned off.

Interestingly enough though, when I had to rearrange them the second time it did allow me to use the bottom inch of the desktop for icons without auto-arranging them (again, auto-arrange is off).

Uninterestingly, it messed them up again this morning, for a third time. I had not used the 4th screen/TV and I had just put my computer to "sleep", not a full shut down or restart or anything. I have no idea why it messed them up this time, but I had to spend another 10 putting them all back again.

If all fails, you can download the ReICon v2.0 {Restore Desktop Icon Layout} by Sordum which can save your icon arrangement to its saved state thus avoiding the time resetting things up again. It is still a pain in the butt, but it will save you some time. Steve