Contact the company that makes the offending program, and they might be able to help.Ģ. What is the solution? Not to run that program :-) or look through its settings, maybe there is an option to adjust the screen resolution it uses. Sound familiar? If you've noticed that the icons change their positions after you run a particular program, this might be the case. When you exit the game, the screen resolution may change back, but the icons have already been re-arranged. When it happens, Windows automatically re-arranges the desktop icons to fit the new screen size. Some programs (such as computer games in particular) change the screen resolution when you run them. If unchecking the Auto-arrange icons option didn't work and the icons keep moving, it could be due to several other possibilities:ġ. Maybe it can give you an idea for a little April Fools joke. For example, did you know you could use the Show desktop icons to quickly hide or show all of the desktop icons at once? Try it and see how it works. If this worked, you may want to experiment with other options on the same shortcut menu. Chances are, you should now be able to move the icons to their appropriate positions on the desktop and Windows should not get in the way.Įncrypt and password-protect external drives with USBCrypt encryption software for Windows 11,10,8. If the Auto-arrange icons option is checked, uncheck it and see if that makes a difference. This should open another menu with several desktop customization options: To see or change this option, right-click on an empty space of your desktop, and move the mouse pointer to highlight the View item on the shortcut menu. If Windows does not let you rearrange the icons as you want, then most probably the Auto-arrange icons option is turned on. However, before starting to use Icon Shepherd, you may want to check a few things first. (Icon Shepherd is free for the private, home use on one computer.) Download Icon Shepherd now or read more about it. When Windows messes up your icons, you can use Icon Shepherd to restore the previously saved layouts, and return the icons to their proper places with one click.

If Windows keeps moving the desktop icons, you may find our software Icon Shepherd of use: it memorizes the positions of the icons and keeps track of them when they are moved around, creating snapshots of the icon positions after each change. All is well for a while, then one morning you log in to your computer and suddenly all icons are messed up. You have quite a few icons on your Windows desktop, and you have spent quite some time painstakingly arranging them in the way that makes sense to you. Password-protect and hide personal files and folders with Folder Guard for Windows 11,10,8.

Can t move icons on desktop windows 7