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Question

Windows 7 desktop icon's keep moving

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Hi there, I have re-arranged my desktop and moved the task bar to the left side of the screen. Therefore I have moved my desktop icons and my gadgets over to the right side of the screen and lined them up in order to what they are, (ie: MS Office icons in one row, excel files I use on a regular basis, Adobe program and so-on and so-on). Everytime I re-boot my PC about 2/3rds of the icons keep moving back over to the left side of the screen and arrange from top to bottom.
I have checked and un-checked align icons by grid and it makes no difference.
I didn't have this issue in VISTA but when I installed Windows 7 I have this issue.
Any suggestions here on how I can stop the icons from moving??
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XQOR

XQOR

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Had the same problem. Please go to this link, there are separate programs for 32 & 64 bit Windows (I have 64 bit, that works fine, cannot know about the 32 bit, but....):

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/save-and-restore-desktop-icon-layout-in-windows-vista/

Al;though designed for Vista, it is fine with Windows 7 Ultimate. Might do for XP, haven't needed to use it there.
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CatlyAlan

CatlyAlan

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I had this problem w/Windows 7-32Bit and found that if I right-clicked on desktop and then clicked "Refresh" the icons stayed in place after a reboot. You'll have to do that anytime you add/move icons to keep them 'locked' in place. Cheers.
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HGN-1

HGN-1

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check autoarrange, and then uncheck it. This removes the check from whatever sort you have set now.

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Mark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
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Mark L. Ferguson

Mark L. Ferguson

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Mark L. Ferguson MS-MVP

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Did that already, they still want to move after each re-boot.
I have both autoarrange and align icons by grid unchecked.
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XQOR

XQOR

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This has been an issue since RC. Both auto arrange and align are off in my case also and i arrange my desktop then upon reboot many of the icons have moved.
I would really appreciate if MS could get a solution out on this and the fact that IE8 goes belly up twice a day.
Thanks
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dgxhubbard

dgxhubbard

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Well I think I have found a way to stop the desktop icons from moving around. I remembered a trick from Windows 3.1, that once you had your icons arranged the way you want them, was to hold down the shift key when re-booting. Well surprise surprise it worked. My icons have stayed put and don't move around like they use to do. One thing to remeber is that you will need to do this each time you add more icons to your desktop.
So other members that are having this problem give it a try and see what happens.
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XQOR

XQOR

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Use "Align icons to Grid" option.
Also you can hibernate instead of Restarting.Its far much better and efficient as well...and it can further resolve the issue .
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Vasu Jain

Vasu Jain

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As mentioned earlier "Align icons to Grid" doesn't work. It appears to me that their is a bug in Windows 7 with this issue.
Furthermore why would I "hibernate" my system, this is a waste of hydro.
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XQOR

XQOR

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Had the same problem. Please go to this link, there are separate programs for 32 & 64 bit Windows (I have 64 bit, that works fine, cannot know about the 32 bit, but....):

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/save-and-restore-desktop-icon-layout-in-windows-vista/

Al;though designed for Vista, it is fine with Windows 7 Ultimate. Might do for XP, haven't needed to use it there.
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CatlyAlan

CatlyAlan

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http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/save-and-restore-desktop-icon-layout-in-windows-vista/

that does work  but you need to restore at every startup.

I really dont understand why this was happening as I had RC running for 2 months with no problem and just installed the real version and now have this issue.  there has to be some update that did that as it is not happening on my laptop.

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richbois

richbois

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I am having the very same problem. No matter what I try my Icons move to the left. It seems like a very basic thing to get wrong. Never had this problem with WindowsXP. Now my gadgets are being stuffed on top of each other in the upper left corner. I am using Windows7 x64bit operating system. I have multiple displays of various sizes. It all worked on WindowsXP but not on Windows7 x64bit. Very annoying problems. I hope it is fixed soon.

Yes I have tried all the basic stuff like ticking and un-ticking auto-arrange etc... I really think it is a problem in Microsofts operating system

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ColKilgore

ColKilgore

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Problem solved !

I am not really sure why. After removing Avast Antivirus and replacing it with Microsoft's antivirus program my Icons now stay put.

Who would of thought ....

I am not sure if it is a solution or a coincidence. But my Icons and Widgets all stay where I put them. They no longer move from restart to restart of the machine.

 

ColKilgore

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ColKilgore

ColKilgore
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