Windows 10 Update Messing Up Desktop Icons

[hlewton]

I have just upgraded to Creator, and am not having this issue.
It could be that your version of "WinTidy" needs to be updated to a version that works with Creator.

Thank you all for the help. I will post about my problems.

Dave I do not believe WinTidy has anything to do with it because it is not running unless I tell it to open and then it is only used for the time it takes to recover my desktop, about 10 seconds. I then shut it down since it has no more use to me after the recovery.

I may be totally wrong about this but I have checked the Task Manager and the only time it shows WinTidy running is when I manually open to recover my desktop as previously mentioned. So I just don't see how it could be the culprit.

I am in the middle of an experiment but won't know the results until tomorrow. When I booted this machine up today I did not use WinTidy to recover the desktop. Instead last night I took a screenshot of it and printed that out. Today I moved the icons that had shifted on their own back to as close as I could to the position I wanted them to be in. Some were stubborn and decided to choose where they wanted to be located so for the most part I left them there. These stubborn icons actually jumped or shifted to where they wanted to be. I'll see how or if they move on the next reboot but I sure hope they stay put. I did save the new layout with WinTidy after the rearrangement but when I can't place a shortcut where I want it, it is frustrating. Not sure if it matters, and it never did before Creators Version, but I have 118 desktop icons. So I'm sure you can see what a pain that is when they move around on their own.

[DaveA]

but I have 118 desktop icons

Why so many, I do not use but maybe 10 of the 26 that I have, BUT then I also have 14 in the Taskbar that I use all the time.
Some of the ones on the desktop are there because I have not removed them since the program or device was installed.

You may not have WinTidy running, but the flag that is keeping each icon in place just may be the cause.

Is it the same ones that keep moving about each time?
If so, I would delete them and then make new ones.

Per http://www.shouldiremoveit.com/PC-Magaz ... ogram.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
WinTidy starts on start up (Found in the run registry)
Also note there has not been an up date since Windows 8.1 and it has been around since Windows 95.

[John Gray]

What I use (and have done since the days of XP) is a program which saves the positions of desktop icons and can restore them to the identical (or near-enough) condition on request. This is, surprisingly, quite a difficult procedure and Microsoft has taken zero interest in this quite reasonable requirement over the years.

Products to search for are Fences, DesktopOK and (the one I use) Desktop Restore (hunt through this menu)

[hlewton]

but I have 118 desktop icons

Why so many, I do not use but maybe 10 of the 26 that I have, BUT then I also have 14 in the Taskbar that I use all the time.
Some of the ones on the desktop are there because I have not removed them since the program or device was installed.

You may not have WinTidy running, but the flag that is keeping each icon in place just may be the cause.

Is it the same ones that keep moving about each time?
If so, I would delete them and then make new ones.

Per http://www.shouldiremoveit.com/PC-Magaz ... ogram.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
WinTidy starts on start up (Found in the run registry)
Also note there has not been an up date since Windows 8.1 and it has been around since Windows 95.

Thanks Dave.

Actually I use probably 75% of the desktop shortcuts on a regular basis. So with that being said I could possibly remove approximately 30 of them which I may do before all this is said and done.

I am not certain if it is the same icons that are moving around but I do believe they are. If they move on me after today's experiment I will take closer note. I had not been so concerned about that since WinTidy put them back in place for me.

I do have the latest version of WinTidy running at least according to the "update" check. Also I have unchecked everything that would make WinTidy active. I will use it only manually now to see if that makes any difference. It had been set to start on boot-up but that has only been set that way since Win 10 Creator's update started causing me problems. Also even though it did open on start up it did not relocate the moved icons without me doing that manually.

As far as deleting icons and creating new ones I can also give that a try but not sure how they would act since some of the ones that did move do not want to return to where I want them to be. Well I just tried that by creating a new shortcut to my Web-mail and it reacts the same as the one I deleted by not locating where I want it to. For some reason the icons that do not want to locate where I want them to seem to be the ones on the top of my screen, the very top row. So not sure why.

Also I do want to throw out one more variable. As I mentioned I have tried many fixes and 1 that did work by not moving my icons was changing the option on the Display on "Change size of text, apps, and other items" back to 100% from 125%. The icons stayed in place, got much smaller, but the text was too small to suit me. That is when I looked for the advanced options that Win 10 Creator's version removed. If I had been able to change the icon size and text size like I used to be that may have been the solution. But since posting above about those advanced options I did learn that Microsoft intentionally removed them. Another kick in the hind end, if you ask me.

[hlewton]

What I use (and have done since the days of XP) is a program which saves the positions of desktop icons and can restore them to the identical (or near-enough) condition on request. This is, surprisingly, quite a difficult procedure and Microsoft has taken zero interest in this quite reasonable requirement over the years.

Products to search for are Fences, DesktopOK and (the one I use) Desktop Restore (hunt through this menu)

Thank you John.

I am going to check out the ones you mentioned and possibly try them to see if they help. It does seem to me by your description that they do much the same thing WinTidy is doing for me now but I'll still look into them just in case.

[hlewton]

I don't have a solution for your problem. But there is an easy way to activate Control Panel: click the Start button, type Control and select Control Panel from the search results.

I used this method to locate the Control Panel and was able to pin it to my Taskbar and told it to also pin it to the Start Menu. Though it gave me no error message and acted like it did as I asked I cannot find it on the Start even though now the option on the Start button id "Unpin" it. Any ideas why I am not seeing it on the Start menus?

[HansV]

Pin to Start should add a new tile to your Start menu/screen. I don't think the list of all apps on the left hand side can be customized.

S1651.png

[hlewton]

Pin to Start should add a new tile to your Start menu/screen. I don't think the list of all apps on the left hand side can be customized.

S1651.png

Thanks Hans, it did. I was not looking for a new tile, I was looking for a new menu item, at least I think that is what it's called. The Control Panel tile was not immediately visible, it was down at the bottom and appeared after scrolling down. I'm going to see if I can move it up.

[HansV]

Yes, you can drag tiles around, and you can combine them into "folders" by dragging one tile on top of another one.

[hlewton]

Thanks I did move it to the very top where I won't have to hunt for it. Never understand why MS took it off the start menu. Seems like a lot of people use Control Panel from time to time.

[HansV]

It is still available in the Start menu, under Windows System:

S1652.png

[hlewton]

Yes it is but I never would have thought to look for it there. Thanks.

[JoeP]

Be aware that Microsoft is migrating all the Control Panel applets to "Settings". This is happening gradually. So far, it appears that often some features are either dropped or not exposed in the UI anymore. Be sure to use the Feedback Hub to comment about "Settings".

[John Gray]

You can add a Control Panel icon to the desktop via one of Brink's tutorials...

Joe's point above still applies, though!

[hlewton]

Thank you both for the input.

[hlewton]

Update if interested. Sorry about the length.

Not ready to claim 100% victory but think I have gotten this problem under control to the point I cannot get it any further.

I mentioned above that I was experimenting trying to solve the problem of the desktop icons moving around on their own so here is what I came up with. After booting up and allowing the icons to move where they wanted to on their own, and not running WinTidy to put them back where I wanted them, I manually moved them to the location I wanted or at least as close to it as I could get. Most icons cooperated but some jumped to other locations a few times before they would settle where I wanted them. 1 of the icons never would allow itself to be located where I wanted even after deleting it and recreating a new shortcut for it. So I had to let it be where it wanted to be.

This part is hard to believe but it happened. After relocating all the shortcuts (Desktop icons) they remained in place after many reboots with the exception of 1. After rebooting it would move to a location of its picking. Again I let it there and rebooted. It remained there but it was nowhere near where I wanted it. I wanted it along the left side of the screen and it moved to the lower left quadrant far from the left side. So here is the part that I cannot believe. I moved it to the right side of the screen upper quadrant, rebooted and after reboot it remained there but created a copy of itself back in the lower left quadrant where it wanted to be and it had the identical identification as the original. I then created another shortcut to the same program. It came out with the same identification but with a (2) as you would expect. I placed it where I wanted it originally, rebooted and all 3 icons remained where they were before rebooting. I then eliminated the 1 in the right quadrant, rebooted and the 2 remaining icons stayed put. I then deleted the last of the original icons leaving only the one with the (2) ending, rebooted and it them jumped to the same spot the original one had, meaning it would not stay where I wanted it.

Not sure why this icon was so contrary but I moved it to the quick access toolbar and everything is staying put, at least for now. I seem to be able to tweak the icons now without many other jumping around. Not sure what will happen if I ever have to add another Desktop icon.

Sure would be nice to know what is happening with this screen of mine but I disabled WinTidy all through this testing so I don’t think it had any influence on the icons.

[hlewton]

Another update.

Well one more of my machines updated to Win 10 Creator's Edition. That was about 4 days ago and so far there were no problems like with the other machine. Still no idea why the other one acted up especially when both are very similar in both hardware and software but I guess that is how computers are.

[DaveA]

Are you running the WinTidy on all of your machines?

[hlewton]

Are you running the WinTidy on all of your machines?

The short answer is yes Wintidy is on all of them but not running. The only one that actually starts Wintidy on Boot-up is the one I just mentioned that worked fine after the Win 10 Creator's Update. I have checked the Task Manager, again just now, to make sure Wintidy is not loaded in the background. Since the only mention of it is when it is actually open and running, I feel safe in saying that it is not running on any of them unless I want it to. I have had to run Wintidy on Boot-up on the machine I just mentioned, which was just updated to Win 10 Creator's Update, for well over two and a half years now, ever since buying it. It originally came with Win 7 installed, the same as the other machine I had problems with, but even with the latest video drivers loaded it has never remembered the size my desktop icons should be but Wintidy gets them back quickly and easily.

So just to repeat, all my machines have Wintidy installed but none are actually running it except the one that updated correctly just recently. However, after restoring my desktop icons to what they should be Wintidy is closed down and no longer is showing in the Task Manager on that machine also.

[hlewton]

Wanted to post an update to this post.

Yesterday I got a new laptop with Win 10 Home edition on it. Straight out of the box, except for what I will say in a minute, it gave me fits on how I wanted to rearrange my desktop icons.

I am beginning to believe Windows 10 does not want you to change its default Desktop icon size. To me they are way to big so I installed Wintidy on this machine and only ran it long enough to easily change the icon size. Once that size was changed, and with Wintidy no longer running or showing in the task Manager, the icons seemed to have a mind of their own. Most of them would eventually stay where I wanted then with a lot of coaxing. By that I mean by being persistent in where I wanted them placed by moving them to that location as many time as it took for them to stay. Again there were maybe 1 or 2 at the very most that were stubborn and I had to work around them. Once I was happy with their location I again ran Wintidy and saved that layout. So for lack of a better explanation I am thinking Win 10 wants its own way as far as Desktop icon size is concerned. Had their been an easier way to change the icon size without using Wintidy I would have tried that first but didn't see it anywhere in the "personalize" right click option.