No "Line up Icons" in XP?

I'm customizing my 80 yr. old Mom's NEW Superdee Duper Core 2 XP laptop. She's never even LOOKED at a PC before. Anyhoo, on my Win2k the desktop icons behave quite well when I get them where I want them, and then Rt click on "Line up icons ". However, XP Media Center moves them everytime I make a change or go to the bathroom, or blow my nose...if ya catch my drift. I really want to try to group like-minded applications together for my Mom so she doesn't have to hunt and peck, and be able to enjoy this technology.

Tanx,
GPL

 

Hello gpl,

Go to Kellys Korner http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm > I and scroll down to: Icons - Lock on Desktop and follow the instruction for a file download to lock Desktop Icons.

Regards - Charles

 

Charlesvar,

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, the ftp zdnet link at kellys-korner.com didn't work. I tried different permutations of that to no avail.

Thanks,
GPL

 

Hi, GPL.

I also tried accessing ftp://ftp.zdnet.com/ and the server is at least down (if not nonexistent). I tried www.zdnet.com and searched for layout.zip and layout.dll. Neither search was fruitful.

Since the Kelly's Korner article states the zip file used a couple of files (layout.dll and layout.reg) from the MS Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit, I don't know if you would be brave enough to pull layout.dll and layout.reg file from it.

CAUTION: I don't know if they modified either of those files in the inaccessible layout.zip package and I imagine it could even be catastrophic to use the "vanilla" files from the resource kit without further advice. .

I do not know if the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit Support Tools is the same as the Kelly's Korner reference to "MS Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit ". Therefore, proceed with caution or wait for me to post results of my further investigation.

I think WinZip and perhaps other unzipping utilies can be used to manually extract files from a self-extracting executable. I'd have to refer to the documentation to be sure but I don't have time at the moment to read/test. I'll post back later and let you know if I'm successful or not.

 

Didn't work for me either.

When you right click on the Desktop, is the Cleanup wizard checked? If it is, uncheck.

I have Align to grid checked and can move an icon - reboot and have it stay in place. I can do this on a brand new MCE system, or on two other flavors of XP, haven't even thought about it in Vista yet.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have no desktop icons - can't stand the clutter - except the Recycle Bin which I moved to the upper left corner, so this was never a problem.

There are plenty of shareware apps that will lock icons and do more than you want.

If you do use the NT Tool kit that Mailman posted about, you can protect the system by creating a manual system restore or if you have a drive imaging app.

Regards - Charles

 

My 2¢

I've use Layout.dll and layout.reg but I much prefer Icon Saver

It's just dandy. Although it comes with some extra gingerbread features, all that is needed to use it (and this is explained in the readme)is two files that it contains: SaveIcons.exe and RestoreIcons.exe

Just run 'em when you need 'em. They do what they say. I keep shortcuts to them on the QL taskbar.

HTH

 

Here's a working link to same files and resolution as Kellys.

http://www2.technobabble.com.au/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=178

About half way down page is section entitled "Save desktop icon positions" dirctions are included but I will take the liberty of cutNpaste and place here:

Tool: Two files from the MS Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit (26KB). Download them from http://www.pcnineoneone.com/tweaks/layout.zip

 

Thanks for those links, surferdude and goddez!

I extracted the contents of layout.zip, followed Goddez's pasted instructions, and it works like a charm. Looks like it may be exactly what GPL wants.

Would be nice if one could save multiple layouts and have a pick-list when restoring.

Surferdude, I ran the SaveIcons.exe in the package you linked and my firewall complained about that program wanting to inject code in C:\windows\explorer.exe so I held off until I use a file comparison tool to see what changes are made to explorer.exe.


By the way,

Yes, I manually extracted the contents of the sp4rk_i386.exe self-extracting executable with WinZip.

Looks like the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit Support Tools is not the same as the Resource Kit. The Support Tools self-extracting EXE doesn't even contain the layout.dll file in its sp4rkx86.cab package.