Placing an item on desktop (sometimes) displaces desktop icons

I have an odd issue that I cannot seem to determine a cause for. Wondering if anyone else has noticed this, and more importantly, identified a solution.

Scenario:

Windows 11 22H2 with the latest (Nov 2022) updates. I have no shell enhancements or programs installed that should alter the desktop experience. Desktop settings are set to not sort icons, to align icons to grid, but NOT to auto arrange icons. PC is an 11th Gen i7-11700K using only the Intel XE graphics with 128GB RAM.

Let's assume that my desktop looks like the image below, with these icons positioned in the upper left corner:



Now, I drag an item to desktop as in the illustration below. Note that I am placing this item nowhere near the upper left corner of the screen.



However, for some reason this SOMETIMES causes all my icons to shift down one position as you see here:



Please note that this does not happen all the time. In fact, it's hard to reproduce it. In the screenshot I actually had to emulate the problem manually by moving the icons down one slot to illustrate the issue. But it happens often enough to be real annoying.

Now, if I save something else to the desktop (not by dragging it to a specific spot on the desktop), it will be placed in that upper left corner, ruining the organization that I have.

Has anyone seen this and identified a resolution?

Could the icon cache file be corrupted? I can't reproduce your bug.

I made an account here specifically just to reply to this post. I am experiencing this same issue on Windows 11 22H2 Build 22621.1413. Have you found any solution to it yet? It doesn't happen often but it's extremely annoying when it does.

Welcome to ElevenForum!

The best suggestion that I can give is to try turning off "Align icons to grid" like this:

Right click on the desktop, select view, uncheck Align icons to grid. Note that it is turned in the image below, you want to turn it off.

I have had this problem for quite some time - I just live with it.
Every time I do a copy/paste to the desktop it goes to the top left corner, then I have to drag it to where I want it.
Tried unchecking "align icons to grid" and it made no difference.
Also tried unchecking "auto arrange icons" - no difference.

I have had that problem for years. It just happened again the other day.

hsehestedt said:

Welcome to ElevenForum!

The best suggestion that I can give is to try turning off "Align icons to grid" like this:

Right click on the desktop, select view, uncheck Align icons to grid. Note that it is turned in the image below, you want to turn it off.

View attachment 57008

Click to expand...

Sadly (not really though) this doesn't solve the problem. I'm glad it didn't because I have OCD and can't take the off-grid placement of icons lol what a mess. I have literally never had this problem before until I did a new PC build and installed Windows 11 22H2. My previous build, an i7 7700k running windows 10 21H2 was perfectly fine. I don't get it.

It sometimes does this for me. I have more icons on the desktop but the Rec Bin is always top left. When dragging a file or even copying and pasting it to the desktop the Rec Bin will be on the bottom of the desktop the next time I look.

It's been happening for a long time, first time i noticed it was in W8 ! So i just never did try & figure why ?

Try this to see if it makes a difference:
In settings>system>display make sure your display resolution is set to "recommended".
Right click on desktop, select personalize.
Select Themes and scroll down and select Desktop icon settings.
Near the bottom left of the Desktop Icon Settings dialog, uncheck Allow themes to change desktop icons. Click Apply and OK to exit.
Arrange icons how you want. Click F5 on keyboard.

glasskuter said:

Try this to see if it makes a difference:
In settings>system>display make sure your display resolution is set to "recommended".
Right click on desktop, select personalize.
Select Themes and scroll down and select Desktop icon settings.
Near the bottom left of the Desktop Icon Settings dialog, uncheck Allow themes to change desktop icons. Click Apply and OK to exit.
Arrange icons how you want. Click F5 on keyboard.

Click to expand...

Sadly doesn't work.
I noticed the trigger that seems to cause this problem is when I save a file to the desktop then move the file's physical position on the desktop to someplace else, like to the middle or an opposite corner. Then the subsequent file save will go to just under the Recycling Bin.

What's weird is, before I installed Windows 11 22H2 and upgraded my PC from an i7 7700k to a Ryzen 7950x3D, I NEVER had this problem before. Either it's related to the new PC or Windows 11 22H2 for me.

This problem was also widely reported for Windows 10 [and, I understand, earlier Windows versions].
Somebody suggested DesktopOK as a solution.
DesktopOK suggestion - AC post #33 - TenForums
At least one other member agreed that it solved the problem.


Best of luck,
Denis

Were yo u able to fix this? I'm having the same issue

On my Win10 Desktop (around 80 folders), Desktop OK has rescued me 2x in the last 2 days.
Now I decided to instead of saving anything to my Desktop to instead save image, .doc, etc. to a folder that starts w/ 0a (on the Desktop) so its the 1st one to choose, then I transfer the file to wherever I want it, including the Desktop.
My Win11 desktop doesn't have many folders on it so I haven't noticed this happening... yet.

Never had the issue when I was using Windows 10. Also, I don't think the issue exists on my laptop, which is running on Windows 11.

Barbus22 said:

Were yo u able to fix this? I'm having the same issue

Click to expand...

If anything, the issue is only worse now. There are times where I will try to move a single icon on the desktop and a whole bunch of icons will suddenly move to seemingly random spots on the desktop. This happens even with 100% clean, pristine installations of Windows.

hsehestedt said:

If anything, the issue is only worse now. There are times where I will try to move a single icon on the desktop and a whole bunch of icons will suddenly move to seemingly random spots on the desktop. This happens even with 100% clean, pristine installations of Windows.

Click to expand...

I have had that happen on my computers from time to time and not just on Win 11. I'm sure that once the MS emoji team gets done with making new emojis, they will get right on it.

Hi.

I have the same issue on my desktop. It happens, sometimes. I have the recycle bin on the desktop. Even the recycle bin moves down one step replacing the item under it and a newly added item, a screenshot for example saved on the desktop, takes its place. This issue is a nuisance but not a big problem for my use of my PC.

suatcini54 said:

Hi.

I have the same issue on my desktop. It happens, sometimes. I have the recycle bin on the desktop. Even the recycle bin moves down one step replacing the item under it and a newly added item, a screenshot for example saved on the desktop, takes its place. This issue is a nuisance but not a big problem for my use of my PC.

Click to expand...

Exactly right. It's not a showstopper, but I arrange things just so to my liking and then it has to mess with me

Resolution (maybe)
Hi,

I have this issue as described by OP on both personal and work laptops using Win11.

When placing something onto desktop (either dragged from location on local machine to desktop) or downloading something to desktop, it will move all icons down one position, leaving the first position (top left of desktop) open.

It appears that this bug is some how related (certainly for me) to the recycle bin being enabled using the "Desktop Icon Settings" menu accessed through Themes.

It appears if I have these settings:


Then it will move my icons down 1 position when doing the above as OP said. If I disable the recycle bin, then it will still cause the issue for me, though others have said this resolves it for them.

However, if I enable both the "Computer" setting and "Recycle Bin" setting, then it seems to resolve the issue (for me at least) and stop this from occurring.

These are the settings I am running now:


I haven't tested which of these settings work with each other so there might be some other combinations that don't cause the bug. However, I can say that so far, having these settings has stopped the issue for me.

Tests run:
"recycle bin" option only enabled - causes bug
Disable then enable "recycle bin" option - fixes bug until desktop is refreshed and/or machine restart/reboot then bug returns until disable/enable is done again.
"Recycle bin" enabled + "Computer" enabled - fixes bug (seems fine after desktop refresh and reboot/restart but have only had these settings enabled for an hour so remains to be seen if this is a long term fix)
"Recycle bin" disabled + "Computer" enabled - bug occurs

As a result, it appears the issue (again for me at least) is related to the Recycle Bin being enabled/disabled and how the desktop interacts with that icon when something changes on the desktop.

I can't say for certain as I only have 2 machines (work and personal) to test on and speaking to others, they can have the recycle bin icon enabled or disabled on their win11 machines and do not have this issue. So it seems to be related to that specific users setup of their own machine. However, the settings above worked so may help others.

Thanks