I’m going crazy trying to rearrange my Win8 desktop to my liking: every time I move an icon somewhere on the screen, it snaps back to the left side without explanation. How do I get my Windows 8.1 Desktop to lay out as I desire?
What you’re seeing is a feature, not a bug, believe it or not. OS designers have been wrestling with the tricky issue of icon placement on the desktop — and in folders — since the beginning of the graphical interface, trying to find that perfect balance between having things automatically arrange themselves neatly and giving users the power to tweak and modify as desired. Worse, Windows is the prime offender in this regard because so darn many apps like to drop shortcuts onto the Desktop, which means that if you’re a Windows user, odds are good that you can’t even see your wallpaper because you have so many icons!
While the Desktop seems to be completely different to individual folders where you can change the view settings, in fact they’re all one and the same. There are two settings that are affecting your ability to manage your Desktop, and both likely need to be changed.
To start, here’s a typical scenario: You drag an icon or folder to a specific spot on the screen…
Just to let go and find that it bounces right back to the starting point.
Frustrating!
To fix it, right click anywhere on the desktop, then chose “View”:
The “Auto arrange icons” is the preference that makes sure they stack from the top left, down then across, regardless of where you want to put them, and the option “Align icons to grid” is the setting that lets you put icons where you want, if they fit into the invisible grid that is superimposed over the desktop.
I recommend turning both of them off to maximize your flexibility, and you’ll find that once you choose one, the menu vanishes, so it’s a bit tedious in Microsoft Windows 8 and Win8.1 to change these particular settings. Once done, however, you can then stack things like this:
Much better if you like to stay organized! 🙂
The trick is to ensure that your monitor is already on, before Windows boots
Try this…
a: Right Click on an empty space on the desktop, and then click Personalize.
b: Then Click Change Desktop Icons option present at the Top left corner.
c: Uncheck the option Allow Themes to change desktop icons.
d: Click Apply and then Ok.
This comes in really handy:
http://www.midiox.com/desktoprestore.htm
They just kept on moving so I put everything ing one folder . (Of course organized) So if it moved I will easily just have to drag the folder. The bin wouldn’t get in the folder though but It worked fine
Dave, Earlier I left a query for you about saving the positions of desktop icons over a reboot. In subsequent reading on the internet, I found the solution:
After moving desktop icons to their desired new locations using the technique you described (Right Click on a vacant part of the desktop, then select View > unclick Auto arrange icons), the missing link was:
Right Click on a vacant part of the desktop, then select Refresh. This saves the current icon positions, which will be preserved upon boot-up.
Terry
Dave, I found that your instructions work fine within a single sitting, but as soon as I reboot (or boot cold first thing in the morning), the “Auto arrange icons” and “Align icons to grid” features (which I turned off in my last session to enable me to place my icons where I want them) have automatically been turned back on, with the result that all my icons are back in their “tidy” arrangement at the left of the screen.
Is it possible to prevent these two features being reset at boot-up under Windows 8.1?