Solved Sudden Strange Icon Behaviour

Catnip · Feb 29, 2024

Hi.

I noticed about three days ago that when I log on, my icons are now all over half my screen and are widely spaced out side to side and top and bottom. If I log out and then log back in, the icons are where they are supposed to be, but all mixed up. If I reboot, they are all over the place again until I log out then back in after it boots up.

I have made no adjustments to my computer other than the recent patch Tuesday updates, and I have not installed any new software in the past month or so, with the exception of my new Nvidia GPU drivers. There is a tutorial on setting icon spacing, and I might try that. I'm just not sure it will hold between boot ups.

Anyone have this recent experience too? Or is it just me? And what could be the cause of this sudden weirdness?

abactuon · Feb 29, 2024

Turn On or Off Auto Arrange Icons on Desktop in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off auto arrange desktop icons for your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The desktop (Win+D) is your home screen and working space in Windows that contains the taskbar and any icons (ex: shortcuts, files, folders, etc...) you add to and arrange...

www.elevenforum.com

Turn On or Off Align Icons to Grid on Desktop in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off align desktop icons to grid for your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The desktop (Win+D) is your home screen and working space in Windows that contains the taskbar and any icons (ex: shortcuts, files, folders, etc...) you add to and...

www.elevenforum.com

Maybe somewhere in here

and

HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

allan · Mar 1, 2024

There is a very old program I've been using since it was first introduced called iconoid (Download Iconoid - MajorGeeks). It works perfectly in all Windows versions up to and including W11. Among other features, it allows you to save your desktop layout and restore it automatically every time Windows loads. Give it a shot.

Catnip · Mar 2, 2024

Thanks fellas. I applied the latest update from Windows and now it only does it half of the time, the rest of the time it boots normally and my icons are in line properly, though they are all scrambled now alphabetically. I can live with that I suppose, but I am going to try your suggestions and see what happens.

Catnip · Mar 14, 2024

It's been a bit, but I have had some success with fiddling around with my PC. Seems I was hit with a virus of sorts. I have done multiple passes with both SuperAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes, as well as MSERT and the Malicious Software Removal Tool. Then I ran SFC and DISM. The system seems to be clean now.

It still buggers up the icons every third or fourth boot, but at least they stay in order now. Logging out and back in fixes them. I guess I will have to live with it unless I am ready to do a repair install, which I am not. I wonder if something changed on Patch Tuesday in February? That seems to be when this started.

I am marking the thread as solved for now. Unless something changes and gets worse, then I will re-open it.