How do I stop Windows from rearranging my desktop icons? Read more.. You have quite a few icons on the Windows desktop, and you want them to be arranged in some way that makes sense to you. For example, you may want to move the most frequently accessed icons right next to the top edge of the desktop, to be able to quickly use them when you have a program's window open on the screen, covering most of the desktop. Yet, when you move an icon to a new position, Windows moves it back to some other place, not the one you want.

Does this sound familiar? 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. This should open another menu with several desktop customization options: If the Auto- arrange icons option is checked, uncheck it and see if that makes a difference. 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. Read more.. If this worked, you may want to experiment with other options on the same shortcut menu.

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. Maybe it can give you an idea for a little April Fools joke.. If unchecking the Auto- arrange icons option didn't work and the icons keep moving, it could be due to several other possibilities. Some programs (such as computer games in particular) change the screen resolution when you run them. When it happens, Windows automatically re- arranges the desktop icons to fit the new screen size.

Disable Windows 7 Explorer Auto Arrange Icons Desktop

When you exit the game, the screen resolution may change back, but the icons have already been re- arranged. Sound familiar? If you've noticed that the icons change their positions after you run a particular program, this might be the case. 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.

Here is how you can disable icons auto arranging in File Explorer in Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7. The suggested setting change does not stop windows from rearranging icons.

Contact the company that makes the offending program, and they might be able to help. If only some icons are moving after you save changes to the documents they represent, it could be because the program that saves the changes actually recreates a new document from scratch, and it makes Windows to find a new position for the icon rather than reuse the old one. As suggested in the comments below, a solution to such a problem is not to save documents themselves on the desktop. Instead, save them to some other folder, such as Documents, and create shortcuts to the documents on the Desktop.

This way, when you save the document, the shortcut will not be changed, and it should keep its position on the desktop. Finally, if Windows keeps rearranging the icons even after you've tried the previous suggestions, another possibility is that you have a faulty video card or an outdated driver for the video card. You see, if the video card or its driver do not behave well, they may change the resolution spontaneously, and when the resolution changes, it causes Windows to rearrange the icons on the desktop, too. If this is the case, first of all check for updates to your video card driver, and install a new version, if available. Keep in mind that you may need to search the web site of the company that manufactured your video card for the latest driver for your specific model. If updating the driver does not solve the problem, try tweaking the video card settings, such as changing its resolution or the display mode.

Technology keeps you connected everywhere you go, helps you capture every moment & makes your life a bit easier; stay up-to-date with tips & tricks from eHow. Enable or disable Auto Arrange desktop icons in Windows 7. Air Anderson Conditioner Installing Window Window George more. Windows 7 will by default let you place desktop icons wherever you want: based on your Align-to-Grid. Start menu, Taskbar, System tray, Desktop, Gadgets, visual settings. This page describes the settings concerning the Windows 7 user interface to improve the user. Recently, I can not drag my desktop icons so I can group them. Does anyone have any ideas of what to do? I already checked to see if Auto Arrange was on or off. This appears to be a problem with MANY MANY people, however Microsoft has either yet to read their own forums or don't know how to fix this. I briefly spoke with a.

Disable Full Row Select in Windows 7 by setting the FFlags registry value. This disables Auto Arrange setting as well, in folders.

Enable or disable . This is a default setting because it prevents an icon from being accidentally placed completely or partly above another icon; the downside to the align to grid feature is that you cannot place your desktop icons any way you want. Disable align to grid in Windows 7. To disable align to grid, and let your desktop icons be freely moved around without alignment: Right- click on an empty area of the desktop (between two icons, not on an icon)From the desktop's context menu, choose . For this reason, we recommend keeping align- to- grid enabled. Tip: Regardless of your current align- to- grid settings for desktop icons, you can view desktop files by opening Windows Explorer: press the Windows logo key and hit . When it opens, type .

From there, you can change the icon view as you want, without affecting your desktop, as you see it when all windows are minimized.