@#$%^! My icons keep rearranging (1 Viewer)

RichO

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On my work computer (Windows 2000 professional) recently the desktop icons have started rearanging every few days. Last night when I shut down the computer they were in the right place and this morning for the second time this week they have been rearranged all to the left side of the screen.

This is a pain to have to keep moving them back to the configuration I'm used to finding them in. I do not have auto-arrange selected and I do have lock desktop items selected.

I've had this computer for 4 years and within the last 2 months this has been happening about once a week on average. Nobody else can get into my user log in so that's not the problem. Any idea why this is suddenly happening?
 

Minkey

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Odd, have they changed anything at work ? - it sounds like thay may be running some kind of script/ update/ backup that is not saving you desktop profile correctly (or changing it back to a windows default). Are you the only person in your office this is happening to ?

There are a couple of hacks around this but you'll need admin rights to do them (and wouldn't recommend doing that at work ;)):

1) Registry hack

Run regedit (start > run and type regedit)

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.

Right-click in the right pane and select New, DWORD Value name it NoSaveSettings and press the Enter key.

Right-click on the new NoSaveSettings item and select Modify. Enter 1 in the Value data box.

Reboot to be sure and I think that should work.

2) dll download

Download Layout.dll (this is a zipped copy) and extract it to C:\Windows\System\
then double click.
There now should be a right click option on My Computer to save the icon positions.
 

RichO

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Funny, just this morning it happened again, and then I received a reply to this thread....

Actually I am the computer administrator at work and we only have 5 machines. It's a small office.

I tried the layout.dll and it seems to work. Although (I assume) this will not stop the icons from rearranging, it will make it easy to restore them when it happens.

Not much has changed with this computer other than the log on password and it seems to have started acting up right after I did that, but I can't imagine that being the reason. I am the only person that this is happening to and the only person using this computer.

Thanks for your help.
 

Minkey

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RichO said:
I tried the layout.dll and it seems to work. Although (I assume) this will not stop the icons from rearranging, it will make it easy to restore them when it happens.

This should stop the icons from rearranging all the time (depending on how your network is setup)

RichO said:
Not much has changed with this computer other than the log on password and it seems to have started acting up right after I did that, but I can't imagine that being the reason.

I imagine this is to do with the way your profiles are updated but I'm sorry I don't have much experience in this area (you could try M$ Technet though the search function is bit rubbish :D :p )
 

RichO

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I don't know if it's just a fluke but the icons just rearranged themselves without even shutting down the computer. I was working with Flash and when I closed the program the desktop was rearranged just like it was this morning. It was in the right order when I opened Flash so something happened while I was using that software.

It's as if someone right clicked the desktop and chose auto-arrange because they're in the exact same order that auto-arrange puts them in. At least the fix was easy this time but I'll have to look into it some more to try and find out the cause.

Thanks
 

Vassago

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If something crashes on your computer, especially explorer, it can cause the locations of desktop items to reset to the left side. Is it possible this is happening when you are trying to restart or shut down?
 

RichO

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There haven't been any error messages when exiting programs, starting up or shutting down, and no errors when using Flash right before they became rearranged. Puzzling....
 

RichO

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This is weird.....this morning after starting up, the desktop layout was correct. Sometime between then and when the Norton anti-virus "all is working correctly" box popped up 1 minute later, the icons rearranged.

Just now I opened Flash and while the program was loading, the screen flickered and the icons rearranged. I quickly restored my desktop and then right before the Flash program window appeared they rearrranged again. Originally this was happening once a week, now it's become several times a day. Really strange...

I may have to uninstall and reinstall Flash and Norton and see if that fixes it.
 

neileg

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It's starting to sound like a virus to me...
 

RichO

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That did come to mind but I've had Norton Anti-virus installed on this machine for the last several months with up to date virus definitions long before this started happening. I would think that Norton would pick up something like that.
 

neileg

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RichO said:
I would think that Norton would pick up something like that.
I don't think everyone would share that confidence in Norton!

Try another AV program, such as AVG.
 

Vamp38341

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I started having the same problem a couple of days ago. My Quick Launch icons also keep being rearranged & my IE Toolbar keeps changing. This just started happening after I turned my computer on one morning. I haven't changed any settings, the auto arrange is NOT checked, AVG picks up nothing wrong, Adaware & Spybot S&D pick up nothing. Every time the screen has to refresh, (opening & closing programs, etc.), they rearrange again. I'm running XP Media Edition SP2. I'm guessing there's something going around (virus) that the "cure" just hasn't been added to the DATs of AV programs yet.
Hopefully they will find a "cure" for it soon, because it's beginning to drive me nuts!
 

RichO

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Strangely it stopped happening (knock on wood) as sudden as it started happening, and I didn't change a thing. My icons haven't moved in over a week now and for a while it was happening several times a day. Of course this doesn't mean that it won't happen again, especially since I jinxed myself now by mentioning it :eek:
 

cfp

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RichO said:
Strangely it stopped happening (knock on wood) as sudden as it started happening, and I didn't change a thing. My icons haven't moved in over a week now and for a while it was happening several times a day. Of course this doesn't mean that it won't happen again, especially since I jinxed myself now by mentioning it :eek:
hi, I think you have passed the problem on to me:)
i am getting the same thing... nicely arranged icons turning into a mess on next boot up... BUT... i have also noticed that my google toolbar on IE6, even although i clear the search history every day, has started to recall search items i deleted weeks or months ago whenever the icons move. I have spyware S&D but found nothing, zone alarm is my firewall and i am stumped as to what the problem could be.... any ideas with the extra info i am giving?
craig in scotland
 

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