After power loss and/or build upgrade: Desktop Icons re-arrange themselves upon reboot (usual fixes didn't work...)

Absolute Zero · Oct 10, 2023

Hello,

I'm completely new here

Since almost a month, a VERY annoying problem plagues me after I have commenced setting up my new laptop: the desktop icons lose the positions & the specific arrangement I've assigned to them after each reboot and sometimes even after just waking up from standby mode.

In the first few weeks after freshly performing a clean reinstall of W11 22H2, there were zero problems with the placement & custom arrangement of desktop icons: after a reboot, the icons were still on the same (custom) spot I've placed them on and in the same custom arrangement - even with "auto-arrange symbols" and "sort by -> element type" options both enabled! The same behavior also applied to my older laptop almost a year ago: in the first few weeks after clean-installing W11, the custom positioning & arrangement of desktop icons worked flawlessly (again with the 2 above-mentioned options enabled), which means the positions of the icons were stable also after reboot - and later, by an unknown cause, this function got broken and from that point on, the icons always re-arranged/resetted themselves after a reboot.

Then, a few weeks after reinstalling and while still engaged in configuring W11 on my new laptop, after an upgrade process to a newer build/a cumulative update OR after a power loss (because that power loss occurred during the upgrade process... I forgot to sufficiently charge my laptop's battery), this menace issue now has also befallen the new device

I've tried all the usual solutions suggested on the internet, including deleting the "IconCache.db" file in AppData\Local\ and disabling the "Allow themes to change desktop icons" option (including a restart after each cases) with no success - the customized icon positions & arrangement simply are not saved anymore or lost after every reboot and sometimes after only a wake-up. Disabling the "auto-arrange symbols" & "sort by -> element type" options didn't fix the problem, either - instead, after every reboot my desktop looks like this:

I'm out of ideas, so please help...

Thanks!

AZ

glasskuter · Oct 10, 2023

Welcome to the forum. This has been an issue for some people has far back as I remember and it's hit me a few times. I'm very picky about my icon arrangement so it bugs the hell out of me when it does. I can say mine have stayed where I put them for quite some time now.

Try this. Make sure Desktop VIEW option is set to "align to grid". Arrange icons the way you want. Hit F5 on your keyboard. See if they stay permanent.

If you want to use a app that restores a messed up icon layout, there are several portable apps that can easily restore your arrangement. Here's just a couple of them.

ReIcon v2.0 (Restore Desktop Icon Layouts)

ReIcon is a Portable freeware and solve Icons mess problem by allowing you to save your desktop Icon layout and restore it later easily.

www.sordum.org

DesktopOK 11.19 Save and restore the desktop icon positions.

Save and restore the positions of the Windows Desktop Icons. a small effective solution for user that have to change the screen resolution!

www.softwareok.com

barreleye · Oct 10, 2023

Besides using programs that can save and restore desktop icon layouts, I've developed a surefire method to avoid the problem altogether - I stopped keeping icons on the desktop. Besides solving this problem:

1. My wallpaper is no longer partially obscured by the icons, spoiling its beauty.
2. The icons never get lost in the ever-changing wallpaper.
3. I don't have to close or move windows to get to the icons.

To augment the Windows Start Menu, which in Windows 11 implemented app folders and became the best implementation since its introduction in Window 95, I do the following:

1. Pin my most used programs to the Task Bar, which it appears you're already doing.
2. I maintain a folder "Programs" that contains folders that contain shortcuts, not unlike the old Windows 3.x Program Manager.

FWIW!

Wynona · Oct 10, 2023

Absolute Zero said:
Hello,

I'm completely new here

Since almost a month, a VERY annoying problem plagues me after I have commenced setting up my new laptop: the desktop icons lose the positions & the specific arrangement I've assigned to them after each reboot and sometimes even after just waking up from standby mode.

In the first few weeks after freshly performing a clean reinstall of W11 22H2, there were zero problems with the placement & custom arrangement of desktop icons: after a reboot, the icons were still on the same (custom) spot I've placed them on and in the same custom arrangement - even with "auto-arrange symbols" and "sort by -> element type" options both enabled! The same behavior also applied to my older laptop almost a year ago: in the first few weeks after clean-installing W11, the custom positioning & arrangement of desktop icons worked flawlessly (again with the 2 above-mentioned options enabled), which means the positions of the icons were stable also after reboot - and later, by an unknown cause, this function got broken and from that point on, the icons always re-arranged/resetted themselves after a reboot.

Then, a few weeks after reinstalling and while still engaged in configuring W11 on my new laptop, after an upgrade process to a newer build/a cumulative update OR after a power loss (because that power loss occurred during the upgrade process... I forgot to sufficiently charge my laptop's battery), this menace issue now has also befallen the new device

I've tried all the usual solutions suggested on the internet, including deleting the "IconCache.db" file in AppData\Local\ and disabling the "Allow themes to change desktop icons" option (including a restart after each cases) with no success - the customized icon positions & arrangement simply are not saved anymore or lost after every reboot and sometimes after only a wake-up. Disabling the "auto-arrange symbols" & "sort by -> element type" options didn't fix the problem, either - instead, after every reboot my desktop looks like this:

View attachment 73747

I'm out of ideas, so please help...

Thanks!

AZ

I keep my desktop clean; my most used apps are pinned to the taskbar. So far, they're staying where I put them.

zbook · Oct 10, 2023

Absolute Zero said:
power loss occurred during the upgrade process

Please perform steps to check the status of the operating system and drive file system:

When possible, update the Eleven Forum "my computer" section with the laptop manufacturer / model.

Run:

1) Tune up plus > post a share link into this thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/bsod-crashes-debugging/360139d1645183596-batch-files-use-bsod-debugging-tuneup_plus_log.zip

Batch files for use in BSOD debugging - Windows 10 Help Forums

Information This thread is for use by the BSOD team to store batch files that can be used to collect additional data, fix settings or anything else that is useful in debugging BSOD problems in Windows 10. The way I see it working is the first

www.tenforums.com

2) Sea Tools for Windows Long Generic test > post a share link into this thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive

https://www.seagate.com/content/dam...shared/downloads/SeaToolsWindowsInstaller.exe

https://www.seagate.com/content/dam/seagate/migrated-assets/www-content/support-content/downloads/seatools/_shared/downloads/100869623_B.pdf

3) Chkdsk /b /v C:

Run these chkdsk on the Windows drive overnight while sleeping.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>chkdsk /b /v
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)

Type: Y

Reboot as needed.

4) After the chkdsk switches have completed run: chkdsk from event > post a share link into this thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/bsod-crashes-debugging/317041d1612147952-batch-files-use-bsod-debugging-chkdskfromevent.bat

5) Another option is a reset (requires the reinstallation of drivers and applications):

Reset Windows 11 PC Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to reset Windows 11 and Remove everything or Keep my files. You can reset Windows 11 when your PC isn’t working well and it’s been a while since you installed an app, driver, or update. Resetting reinstalls Windows 11, but lets you choose whether to keep your...

www.elevenforum.com

Absolute Zero · Oct 12, 2023

glasskuter said:
Welcome to the forum. This has been an issue for some people has far back as I remember and it's hit me a few times. I'm very picky about my icon arrangement so it bugs the hell out of me when it does. I can say mine have stayed where I put them for quite some time now.

Try this. Make sure Desktop VIEW option is set to "align to grid". Arrange icons the way you want. Hit F5 on your keyboard. See if they stay permanent.

If you want to use a app that restores a messed up icon layout, there are several portable apps that can easily restore your arrangement. Here's just a couple of them.

ReIcon v2.0 (Restore Desktop Icon Layouts)

ReIcon is a Portable freeware and solve Icons mess problem by allowing you to save your desktop Icon layout and restore it later easily.

www.sordum.org

DesktopOK 11.19 Save and restore the desktop icon positions.

Save and restore the positions of the Windows Desktop Icons. a small effective solution for user that have to change the screen resolution!

www.softwareok.com

My Desktop View Option is already "aligned to grid" :

As for the other highlighted text of Your quote:

Yeah, I knew that already from the beginning

- but I want to get it to work (again) natively within W11... because in the first weeks, everything worked absolutely fine (like with my old laptop) even with the "auto-arrange symbols" and "sort by -> elements" options still enabled! And then something (W11 update or power loss or a combination of BOTH) f***ed it up again - here again, the same story as with my old laptop

barreleye said:
Besides using programs that can save and restore desktop icon layouts, I've developed a surefire method to avoid the problem altogether - I stopped keeping icons on the desktop. Besides solving this problem:

1. My wallpaper is no longer partially obscured by the icons, spoiling its beauty.
2. The icons never get lost in the ever-changing wallpaper.
3. I don't have to close or move windows to get to the icons.

To augment the Windows Start Menu, which in Windows 11 implemented app folders and became the best implementation since its introduction in Window 95, I do the following:

1. Pin my most used programs to the Task Bar, which it appears you're already doing.
2. I maintain a folder "Programs" that contains folders that contain shortcuts, not unlike the old Windows 3.x Program Manager.

FWIW!

I do agree with *some* of Your arguments but I still want to have my desktop with all the desired symbols in the desired order - I want it that way

zbook said:
Please perform steps to check the status of the operating system and drive file system:

When possible, update the Eleven Forum "my computer" section with the laptop manufacturer / model.

Run:

1) Tune up plus > post a share link into this thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/bsod-crashes-debugging/360139d1645183596-batch-files-use-bsod-debugging-tuneup_plus_log.zip

Batch files for use in BSOD debugging - Windows 10 Help Forums

Information This thread is for use by the BSOD team to store batch files that can be used to collect additional data, fix settings or anything else that is useful in debugging BSOD problems in Windows 10. The way I see it working is the first

www.tenforums.com

2) Sea Tools for Windows Long Generic test > post a share link into this thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive

https://www.seagate.com/content/dam...shared/downloads/SeaToolsWindowsInstaller.exe

https://www.seagate.com/content/dam/seagate/migrated-assets/www-content/support-content/downloads/seatools/_shared/downloads/100869623_B.pdf

3) Chkdsk /b /v C:

Run these chkdsk on the Windows drive overnight while sleeping.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>chkdsk /b /v
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)

Type: Y

Reboot as needed.

4) After the chkdsk switches have completed run: chkdsk from event > post a share link into this thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/bsod-crashes-debugging/317041d1612147952-batch-files-use-bsod-debugging-chkdskfromevent.bat

5) Another option is a reset (requires the reinstallation of drivers and applications):

Reset Windows 11 PC Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to reset Windows 11 and Remove everything or Keep my files. You can reset Windows 11 when your PC isn’t working well and it’s been a while since you installed an app, driver, or update. Resetting reinstalls Windows 11, but lets you choose whether to keep your...

www.elevenforum.com

I already did Chkdsk (but not with /b /v arguments - I did it with /f /r instead) immediately after the power loss respectively once this problem occured and as far as I remember, Chkdsk couldn't find any errors or if there *were* any errors, the were all fixed by Chkdsk

Regarding the remaining instructions in Your quote: may I know first, WHY or FOR WHAT I should perform these steps? Because it appears it's gonna by a pain in the a$$ or take a lot of time to process so much

Thanks for help anyway to ALL of you here

AZ

zbook · Oct 12, 2023

Power loss can cause corruption of the operating system, registry, or drive file system.

All of the steps can be performed overnight while sleeping.

Tuneup plus runs in the background and produces a text report.

Sea Tools checks the drive.

Chkdsk /b /v uses switches that are the deepest checks of the drive file system.

A reset can skip some of the above steps but requires the reinstallation of drivers and applications

starchase · Oct 12, 2023

I see there are various Tutorials on backing up things like the Task Bar icons and this Google Search "save desktop icon layout windows 11", etc. but I wonder if Windows Backup, commonly known as Backup And Restore, which Microsoft is reported deprecating, could be used to backup the Desktop icons to be restorable in cases such as you experienced. Smarter members here might be able to find where the icon arrangement settings are in the Registry and work it out. Otherwise there is the previously mentioned program Relcon.

Absolute Zero · Oct 22, 2023

zbook said:
Power loss can cause corruption of the operating system, registry, or drive file system.

All of the steps can be performed overnight while sleeping.

Tuneup plus runs in the background and produces a text report.

Sea Tools checks the drive.

Chkdsk /b /v uses switches that are the deepest checks of the drive file system.

A reset can skip some of the above steps but requires the reinstallation of drivers and applications

Okay, I just tried to perform the 5 steps from Your first posting and ALL files You have linked (with the exception of Seagate) require a membership on TenForums...

AZ

zbook · Oct 22, 2023

This link can be used for Tuneup plus:

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/bsod-crashes-debugging/360139d1645183596-batch-files-use-bsod-debugging-tuneup_plus_log.zip

After completing chkdsk /b /v post a new V2 share link into the newest post.

For Sea Tools run both the short and long generic test > post share links into this thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive

Absolute Zero · Oct 23, 2023

zbook said:
This link can be used for Tuneup plus:

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/bsod-crashes-debugging/360139d1645183596-batch-files-use-bsod-debugging-tuneup_plus_log.zip

That is the EXACT same link like the one from Your first posting - and again, I'm getting blocked from download with a request to sign up a membership first...

AZ

zbook · Oct 23, 2023

@z3r010 may be able to comment on the link

For non-members:

Tuneup_plus_log.zip

【Extract the batch file from the ZIP file】

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/bsod-crashes-debugging/360139d1645183596-batch-files-use-bsod-debugging-tuneup_plus_log.zip

Absolute Zero · Oct 23, 2023

zbook said:
z3r010 may be able to comment on the link

Edit: okay, got it!

AZ

Absolute Zero · Nov 8, 2023

zbook said:
@z3r010 may be able to comment on the link

For non-members: Tuneup_plus_log.zip 【Extract the batch file from the ZIP file】

https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/bsod-crashes-debugging/360139d1645183596-batch-files-use-bsod-debugging-tuneup_plus_log.zip

1.) I could successfully download both .zip files ("360139d1645183596-batch-files-use-bsod-debugging-tuneup_plus_log.zip" [27 Kilobytes] and "Tuneup_plus_log (1).zip" [6 Kilobytes] ) about two weeks ago with the help from z3r010, but I did not yet unzip or use them since - that I'm doing right now, but when trying to extract the former file (the one beginning with "36...."), 7-Zip comes with the error message:

"Could not open the file as [zip] archive
Is not archive"

2.) The latter one (6 Kilobytes) I could extract, though, and have already run & finished it successfully. However, the entire tuneup.log is in German language - is it possible to run the same program ("Tuneup_plus_log.bat") in such a way, that it generates the .log file in English?

3.) I'll skip the SeaTools Long Generic Test, because I perceive it to be too risky and possibly taking too long time (perhaps days, if I have bad luck) and also because the drive on my laptop is not a disk drive, but a 1TB NVMe-SSD drive. And besides, chkdsk /b /v should cover enough depth of testing/scanning of the filesystem...

AZ

zbook · Nov 8, 2023

This thread was opened Oct 10, 2023.

There was no activity for 15 days.

Please open a new thread for any computer problems.

These links may be useful to create files using English:

Add, Remove, and Change Display Language in Windows 10

How to Add or Remove Language Packs and Change Display Language in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

Change Display Language in Windows 10

How to Change Display Language in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

The main risk in running Sea Tools short or long tests are seeing the test results rather than test harms.

The main commands in the tuneup plus are:
sfc /scannow
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
chkdsk /scan

Absolute Zero · Nov 13, 2023

zbook said:
This thread was opened Oct 10, 2023.

There was no activity for 15 days.

Please open a new thread for any computer problems.

There is ZERO reason to open up a new thread for the exact same topic, so I'll keep sticking to this one

Here are my most recent "Tuneup.log" and "chkdskFromEvent.log" attached:

zbook · Nov 13, 2023

Tuneup plus and chkdsk were good.

There are multiple types of drive tests.

Sea Tools for Windows runs a test that is typically used for warranty replacement: Long Generic test

The chkdsk /scan is avery quick superficial scan.

The deepest scan is chkdsk /b /v C: or chkdsk /b /v D: or chkdsk /b /v E:

Since you don't want to run these tests I'll sign off.

Other members may be able to comment on other computer problems.

Absolute Zero · Nov 15, 2023

zbook said:
Tuneup plus and chkdsk were good.

The deepest scan is chkdsk /b /v C: or chkdsk /b /v D: or chkdsk /b /v E:

Since you don't want to run these tests I'll sign off.

Other members may be able to comment on other computer problems.

I had already done chkdsk /b /v and had attached the results in my previous posting

I've also finally decided to give SeaTools a go and did a full "Long Generic Test". It passed without any errors. I've attached the results stored in "event_log.bin" in this posting.

AZ