Desktop icons

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 8 Jul 2004 11:07 am

Win XP,pro. Every now and then, my desktop rearanges itself, this has been happening quite frequently. Is there a way to stop this,it happens on startup.

Thanks..Bill

Doug Brumley · Post by **Doug Brumley** » 8 Jul 2004 8:06 pm

Bill, I don't have XP so this is a bit of a guess: Do you by chance have "auto-arrange" turned on? On 98/ME, you can tell by right-clicking on a blank area of the desktop and highlighting "Arrange Icons"; there will be a check-mark next to "auto-arrange" at the bottom of the list if the feature is activated. (I assume the process is similar in XP.) If so, this will be very controlling with your icons, preventing them from getting out of line and possibly rearranging their location on screen as you delete icons, etc. Maybe this is what is causing your troubles? It is at least one thing to eliminate before looking to deeper causes.

Everett Cox · Post by **Everett Cox** » 8 Jul 2004 11:35 pm

Bill-- I don't have Win XP, either, but have experienced Win 98 doing what you describe. Not because of 'auto-arrange' or whatever but at random.

I found a small, FREE, utility from PC Mag called 'WINTIDY' that allows you to save the desktop layout and restore it when the icons get messed up. Multiple desktops can be saved by resolution or user supplied name.

***I see they now want a few $$$ for their utilities. But it's upgraded and now runs with XP. To get a single file would cost $6. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,17748,00.asp

--Everett

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 9 Jul 2004 6:16 am

This may not be your problem but I once had a virus on my computer that caused a similiar problem. Every time I tried to put the curser on an icon, it would jump to another spot on my screen. It took a good anti-virus program to crear up that mess!
Erv

Everett Cox · Post by **Everett Cox** » 9 Jul 2004 8:46 am

Bill-- I did some more checking on the WINTIDY utility and found that the older(free) version of should work with WinXP. Just disable WinXP "align icons to grid" (or something like that).

The version I have is small enough to email if you want to try it. Works really great under Win98. --Everett

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 9 Jul 2004 2:12 pm

Everett,
I have disabled everything exept show icons.If that doesn't work,I'll get you to send Wintidy.

Doug,
Align to grid was checked,I unchecked it.
I also have Norton,don't think it's a virus(famous last words)

Thanks everybody..Bill