Windows 11 keeps rearranging my desktop icons

Hello Slouch and welcome to the Microsoft Community!

Based on your feedback, you are experiencing an issue with desktop icons rearranging into a completely random configuration

You may want to try a clean start to see if this resolves the issue.

This is to help you troubleshoot any third party software that may be interfering with your computer.

The method is as follows

1. Click Windows+R and type msconfig.

2. Open System Configuration and select General tab - Selective Startup.

3. Remove the checkbox of Load startup items.

4. Go to the Services tab - click Hide all microsoft services in the lower left corner, and then click Disable all.

5. Click OK and restart your computer. (Be sure to select Hide all microsoft services first and then click Disable all, otherwise it may lead to unforeseen problems such as not being able to access the system.)

6. Check if the problem will reappear.

DISCLAIMER: Clean Boot is a way to start Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs so that you can determine if background programs are interfering with your games or programs and help you figure out the cause of the problem. It will help you get back on track.

See if you can fix it

Other than that you try the following:

1. Turn off automatic icon arrangement

Although you mentioned that “Automatically arrange icons” and “Arrange icons in a grid” are already checked, please try the following steps to make sure that the settings are correct:

Right-click on an empty space on your desktop and select “View”.

Uncheck “Automatically arrange icons” and “Align icons to grid”.

2. Disable Theme Change Desktop Icons

Sometimes, theme changes may affect the icon layout:

Right-click on an empty space on your desktop and select “Personalize”.

Click “Theme” in the left menu, and then select “Desktop Icon Settings”.

Uncheck “Allow themes to change desktop icons”.

3. Reset Icon Cache

Reset icon cache can solve the problem of abnormal icon display:

Open Command Prompt (run as administrator).

Type the following command and press Enter:

ie4uinit.exe -ClearIconCache

taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F

DEL /A /Q “%localappdata%\IconCache.db”

DEL /A /F /Q “%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache*”

shutdown /r /f /t 00

This will rebuild the icon cache and restart the computer.

4. Using Group Policy

If you are using Windows 11 Professional or Enterprise, you can use Group Policy to prevent desktop icons from rearranging:

Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box, type gpedit.msc and press Enter.

Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Desktop.

Find and enable “Disable desktop icon reordering”.

We hope you find the above information helpful!

Kirito|Microsoft Community Support Specialist