Desktop icons completely reset after refresh

Hey all,

Recently migrated to a new hard drive. Upgraded from a 1TB SSD to a 4TB. I did take the lazy route, did not do a fresh install of Windows 11. I cloned the original drive onto the new drive.

Everything seems mostly ok, expect for one lingering issue. If I hit F5 to refresh the desktop, all of the icons reset completely. They move from where they are, to just one large group on the left side of the screen.

I've looked for solutions online. I've tried the ones that suggest registry edits and fixes, but nothing has worked so far.

I do have DektopOK, which will put them back where I last saved them, but thats just a temporary fix, and I would like to figure out the underlying problem.

Thanks!

Probably an obvious suggestion but Right click on desktop, click View. Make sure 'auto arrange icons' is UNCHECKED.

glasskuter said:

Probably an obvious suggestion but Right click on desktop, click View. Make sure 'auto arrange icons' is UNCHECKED.

Click to expand...

Yep, tried. That was actually the first thing checked. Sorry I didnt mention it.

Make sure you have no corrupt system files that is causing this problem. Open a command prompt as administrator and type sfc /scannow
Pay attention to the scan results to see if SFC found anything it could not repair. If it found corruption it could not fix followup with this command (note the spaces)
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
Restart computer

glasskuter said:

Make sure you have no corrupt system files that is causing this problem. Open a command prompt as administrator and type sfc /scannow
Pay attention to the scan results to see if SFC found anything it could not repair. If it found corruption it could not fix followup with this command (note the spaces)
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
Restart computer

Click to expand...

Thanks for the idea. Windows did find corruption, but the issue still remains after run the tools you mentioned.

Appreciate the try!

SOLVED. Wanted to give a quick update, because I found a solution... I dont know how it works, but it works.

Was trying various searches, and I am across a website that has Freeware called Thumbnail and Icon Cache Rebuilder (not sure if I'm allowed to link to outside sites so I'm not). Gave it a shot, and whatever it did under the hood worked. Rebooted and desktop icons do not reset.

@Raygunner Great. Thank you for reporting back the solution. It will help someone else at one time or another. You taught me something I wouldn't have suspected for that particular issue.
Yes, you can post outside links. Please do that, but I'll bet a dollar to a donut it does the same thing as this. Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 11 Tutorial

glasskuter said:

@Raygunner Great. Thank you for reporting back the solution. It will help someone else at one time or another. You taught me something I wouldn't have suspected for that particular issue.
Yes, you can post outside links. Please do that, but I'll bet a dollar to a donut it does the same thing as this. Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 11 Tutorial

Click to expand...

No problem. I posted for that very reason. I hate when there are open posts like that and no resolution. You never know if they found a solution or not.

Good to know about the links, this is the one I used: Thumbnail and Icon Cache Rebuilder for Windows 10

It says its for Windows 10, but it worked fine in 11.