Why is Windows 10 auto-arranging my icons so often?

2

I been having an issue on one of my PC's where the desktop icons will auto-arrange themselves and I am not sure why this is happening. At first it was only happening periodically maybe once every couple months, but now it is happening more often within a week or two. It is kind of frustrating because I like to manually arrange my icons a certain way that I am used to, but they keep moving to an auto-arranged format. Before anyone asks, yes auto arrange icons is turned off. I know sometimes icons will auto-arrange when you remote into a PC, but I have not been remoting into this PC at all. Makes me wonder if my PC has been compromised and if someone else is remoting into my PC without my knowledge. I thought about using something like DesktopOK and using a script to save the position of my icons daily and just restore them when I notice they moved, but this does not fix the problem of why they are moving in the first place. I have also considered something like Rainmeter or even a complete reformat to start over.

It would really be nice to find out what is causing this or find out if I should be concerned that my system is compromised and in need of a refresh.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to solve this problem?

John Smith

Posted 2018-01-04T17:17:37.180

Reputation: 285

Do you play any games that run at a different screen resolution? – RedGrittyBrick – 2018-01-04T17:22:04.683

Does it happen after a reboot or during use? – Digital Lightcraft – 2018-01-04T17:24:28.423

I have not been playing any games and I only notice it when I turn on my PC in the morning. I leave my PC on most of the day, but shut down at night before bed. I do not notice them move during use. – John Smith – 2018-01-04T17:37:00.787

It could be that my PC's is just old. I am using an 8 year old motherboard with the fastest CPU it supports and maxed out RAM. – John Smith – 2018-01-04T17:45:28.120

1On some machines I find Explorer crashes from time to time. It restarts automatically, but the desktop and system tray are messed up. I have given up trying to arrange the icons manually. My only suggestion is to rename the icons with a prefix which will auto-arrange them in the order you want them, eg 01 Chrome, 02 Firefox, etc, but note that this means that reinstallations and some updates will not remove the old icons and create new icons without the prefix. Not very satisfactory, I know, and I have learned to live with auto-arrange. – AFH – 2018-01-04T17:53:34.647

Hmmm...I do get an explorer error when I shutdown at night quit often and I do remember this happening recently. I never put two and two together that this might be the time my icons are auto-arranging. This might be exactly why this is happening. Thanks! – John Smith – 2018-01-06T20:01:01.850

@AFH It is clear to me now that explorer.exe is crashing time to time when I shutdown my computer and this is what is causing my icons to auto-arrange. Your answer help resolve my concerns. If you move your comment down to an answer, I can accept as the answer. – John Smith – 2018-02-17T17:36:37.373

Answers

3

On some machines I find Explorer crashes from time to time. It restarts automatically, but the desktop, taskbar and system tray are messed up.

I have given up trying to arrange the icons manually. I found a desktop icon layout save/restore, but this was only partially successful and I have given up on using it.

However, I have just tried DektopOK and initial tests seem better, though I haven't yet used it enough to recommend it. I haven't found a solution for the taskbar and system tray.

My only other suggestion is to rename the icons with a prefix which will auto-arrange them in the order you want them, eg 01 Chrome, 02 Firefox, etc, but note that this means that reinstallations and some updates will not remove the old icons and create new icons without the prefix.

I know that this is unsatisfactory, especially with 66 icons on my desktop, and so far I have just learned to live with finding my short-cuts when auto-arranged, not helped by the fact that the All Users desktop and my own are ordered alphabetically in separate, but abutted groups.

AFH

Posted 2018-01-04T17:17:37.180

Reputation: 15 470

I have experience using DesktopOK, it does as advertised but if screen layout or resolution is different from the saved configuration it doesn't really know what to do; although it doesn't claim to either. That means making it work is up to the user. – Damon – 2018-02-17T20:23:39.580

@Damon - Thanks for the observation: I have most often needed to restore the icon layout on restoring the original resolution after a change (eg after going into safe mode), so it should be ideal for that. – AFH – 2018-02-17T22:29:56.070

Asked: 2018-01-04T17:17:37.180

Viewed: 368 times

Active: 2018-02-17T19:00:27.543