ICONs overlapping on desktop

Hi Ethan,

This is Wil, one of the independent advisor, an expert with Windows 10 and a fellow Windows 10 user like you. I understand your concern about Desktop icons overlapping.

The reason why your icons overlap each other is that the align icons to grid is disabled. To resolve this issue, you just need to right-click on an empty space on your desktop and hover to "View" and click on "Align icons to grid" and click on "Auto-arrange icons"

You may check this link for more information about aligning icons. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/57521-turn-...

I hope the information I provided will help you. If you need further assistance please do reply back and I will respond as quickly as possible. Have a nice day.


Thanks,
Wilfred P.
Independent Advisor


Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

Hi Wil,

Have tried that but does not work. It appears that the ICONs are elongated and stuck in 1 horizontal field. Attached is a better screenshot of the problem. The Icons are unable to be moved. When you auto align it only shows 2 icons at the top in the same current position as seen here. 

Auto arrange.

Align to grid.

Hi Ethan.

I think I found the issue and I actually tried it on my end to replicate the issue. If you would see on my screenshot below that my icon spacings are wide. That is because I changed the settings on the registry. The steps on the link below are for Windows 8 but it is actually the same for Windows 10.

1. Open Registry by pressing Windows key + R and type regedit and press on Enter or click on OK.
2. If prompted by UAC, then click/tap on Yes.
3. In regedit, navigate to the location below. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
4. In the right pane of WindowMetrics, double click/tap on IconSpacing to modify it and change the value to -1125
5. Double click/tap on IconVerticalSpacing to modify it and change the value to -1125 as well.
6. Close regedit and restart the computer.

For visual instructions, you may access this link: https://www.eightforums.com/threads/desktop-ico...

If you need further assistance, please do reply back and I will research more on this issue and will respond as quickly as possible with additional options for troubleshooting.


Thanks,
Wilfred P.
Independent Advisor

Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

Thanks Wil

That worked.

Very much appreciated. This is my sons school computer and he was extremely upset.

He thought that he had broken it.

Kind regards,

Ethan

Thank you as well, Ethan, since I learned something new because of this. For now, I will mark this case as closed and resolved. If you need further assistance, feel free to post a new thread for it. Bye for now and have a please stay safe.