Desktop icon's keep 'Auto arranging' themselves

Chris [BEANS] · 30 Apr 2006 at 18:24

Hi, the old man's computer is doing odd things!!!

Every time it is re-started after shutting down all the desk top icons have shifted to the left hand side of the desktop.

I've never seen this before and haven't got the foggyest wht to do about it but if it happens again the poor old boy is gonna have an embolism!!
Normally i wouldn't mind but he hasn't got anything worth inheriting yet so i'm keeping him around!!

Any ideas or suggestions??

Ta

Zefan · 30 Apr 2006 at 18:25

Probably something to do with registry... god knows what.

Xez · 30 Apr 2006 at 22:10

right click > arrange icons by > untick auto arrange?

might do the trick..

or am i on the wrong idea here?

G-MAN2004 · 30 Apr 2006 at 23:15

Xez said:
right click > arrange icons by > untick auto arrange?

might do the trick..

or am i on the wrong idea here?

That would seem the correct way.

Chris [BEANS] · 30 Apr 2006 at 23:50

funnily enough, auto arrange isn't ticked!!

I know i'm asking for help and therefore no expert but i'm not retarded!!

Six6siX · 30 Apr 2006 at 23:55

Tried ticking it and then unticking it again? (random idea...)

bledd · 1 May 2006 at 01:09

create a new user account and see if it happens with that one?

if not, then copy everything you need from %userprofile% to the new one

Charlie Bravo · 1 May 2006 at 08:29

Chris [BEANS] said:
funnily enough, auto arrange isn't ticked!!

I know i'm asking for help and therefore no expert but i'm not retarded!!

I don't remember him saying you were.

To be honest with you, auto arrange was the first thing I thought of and as with all problems, you start with the basics and go from there.

modo77 · 1 May 2006 at 13:51

You could give this a go:

"In Windows 9x/NT4/2000/ME/XP/2003 you can lock down the position of your Desktop icons using a couple of files from the MS Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit (RK) [5 KB, free, unsupported].
Place Layout.dll in %windir%\System (Win95/98/ME) or %windir%\System32 (WinNT/2000/XP/2003) and then double-click on Layout.reg.
From now on, whenever you right-click on the "Recycle Bin" or "My Computer" icons, you can see a new option: "Save [or Restore] Desktop Icon Layout".
There are several 3rd party tools that also do this, but these files are free and only 14 KB in size."

To automate Layout.* installation get Icon Restore http://users.rcn.com/taylotr/icon_restore.html[freeware].

Similar tool http://www.3feetunder.com/files/dips.zip[freeware].

Nate--IRL-- · 1 May 2006 at 15:40

google iconoid, should solve all your problems

Nate

Trigger · 1 May 2006 at 16:29

bledd. said:
create a new user account and see if it happens with that one?

if not, then copy everything you need from %userprofile% to the new one

That's what I'd guess at. You'll need three acounts though to be able to copy the user profile over as you can't copy the files from the account you're using. I'd check that the extention on ntuser in the %userprofile% directory is .dat and not .man first though. Make sure by right clicking 'My Computer', go to advanced then click user profiles and see what type of profile your dad's is. If it says mandatory then you need to change the extention