Desktop icons won't stay put

surferdude2

I set up a new User account operation to work around that prior problem and it didn't help. As you say, lots of trouble for questionable gain. For the time being I plan to work with what I have and hope the IconSaver program at least minimizes the inconvenience.

 

I found another utility named WinTidy that can save your icon layout and restore it automatically, like when you change screen resolution. It can also be set to startup with Windows (upon installation), which would then load the appropriate layout for the screen resolution.

Get it here

 

Here's a tip on using any of those icon position restorer tools. If you will ensure that "Snap To Line" is unchecked before performing the Restore function, they will work perfectly the first time. If you leave Snap To Line checked, you will have to run the Restore function numerous times to get all of the icons relocated properly.

They ALL seem to have that weakness and none have ever mentioned it in their readme file.

In BOBBO's case, I think he may have some software that is not playing fair or else some malware that is causing this problem. Restoring is one thing but finding the root cause would be very rewarding at this point.

How about Safe Mode BOBBO, does the problem occur there as well?

 

Just throwing out a suggestion cuz it struck me as a possibility ........ check for updated drivers for your video card.

 

And yet another interesting development...while running the "Align to Grid" test, I inadvertantly left it without being selected. Guess what...I got the same symptoms as you BOBBO, the icons were scrambled this morning when I booted up! I tested that several times and it is repeatedly the case. The icons seem to go in some random order, just as you said. Rearranging them and tagging the ATG option made them stick.

Try that and let us know if it does the job for you. We just may have been overlooking the obvious all along since I have always run with ATG enabled since day one and had no idea it would cause this.

 

surferdude2: I checked and the ATG option is checked. As far as I know it always has been, although it's not anything I look for ordinarily. The last couple days the Desktop icons have been behaving themselves, but I haven't put them through any stress tests such as rebooting, just the normal opening and closing of numerous windows and programs. Not in any hurry to, either.

I did notice something else the other day. Whenever I found my Desktop icons messed up, my Quick Launch Toolbar had also disappeared and after re-enabling it, the little icons in it weren't in the arrangement I like. (Fussy fussy.) Any significance to that?