Desktop icons keep rearranging

Hi, I too am having or was having this problem every time I started my windows 10 pro x64 pc but only when starting from a shut down state. Reset had no change to the icons on the desktop.

I tried everything I have read in the forums, the reg keys (which mine were correct anyway) unchecking the "allow theme to change desktop icons" box and a bunch of other things I found in various threads but none seemed to work. I did not want to use a 3rd party software program to work around the problem so I didn't even try it. I would rather move my icons back than do that ( I have a lot of icons but I keep them grouped in a few folders so not a big deal to rearrange but still sucks.

One thing I noticed while messing with this problem was my system restore was not working, I kept getting an error when trying to do a restore. I think the error code was 0x80070091 (pretty sure that is correct) Now this is to fix system restore but seems to have fixed my icons rearranging too. it is pretty simple to try. you simply have to rename the folder "WindowsApps" you can rename it anything but I did as recommended "WindowsApps.old" this fixed my system restore and I think it fixed my icon changing problem too. Ohh maybe not quite that easy as it sounds. you will probably have to mess with security so you can rename it, which made me think this may be the problem with the icon thing so I also gave myself full and special permissions on my "user" folder too. My thinking was the "desktop.ini" or some other file was probably not being allowed to save.

So I renamed the WindowsApps folder and I gave myself full control of my "Users" folder. to get access to rename the windowsApps folder (which you may or may not have to do) do this


Option 1: Rename the WindowsApps folder in Safe Mode

1. Boot into Safe Mode.
2. Right click on Start and click on Command Prompt (admin).
3. Type these commands below one by one.

• cd C:\Program Files
• takeown /f WindowsApps /r /d Y
• icacls WindowsApps /grant “%USERDOMAIN%\%USERNAME%”F) /t
• attrib WindowsApps -h
• rename WindowsApps WindowsApps.old
4. Reboot back into Windows.
5. Run System Restore.

Option 2: Rename the WindowsApps folder from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)

Boot into WinRE. To do this, click Start > Settings > Update & security > Recovery. Then under Advanced startup, click Restart now.
Click Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt. Enter your administrator password when prompted.
Type these commands, one by one:
cd C:\Program Files
attrib WindowsApps -h
rename WindowsApps WindowsAppsOld
Reboot Windows.

The second thing I did which may have actually fixed the desktop icon problem was to give myself full control of the Users folder I just did this under the folder properties, then the security tab, then advanced and add my user name and change permissions to full and special control. You have to do this to all folders/files inside this Users folder too. I think there is a checkbox you check..

as I say one of these 2 things (or both) seem to have fixed the problem for me, it was happening every time I started my PC from a shutdown and now for 3 days I have not had my icons change on me.

One last note, renaming the windowsapps folder will cause other problems, a few apps that are in that folder will not run, like photo viewer and others but you can get them back by renaming the folder back...

hope this helps

I know that this tutorial doesn't work for files in folders anymore after the Creators Update, but when I was clicking the .bat files, it fixed my desktop problem. I can move my files around on the desktop and they don't reset when I refresh or restart my computer. I just really need something for folders.

Hi,

Ok, I am pretty sure it was/is renaming the windowsapps folder that fixed the desktop icons moving. I had not had my icons mess up on me till I, well basically I renamed the windowsapps.old folder back to windowsapps. what I did is create a new folder named windowsapps and copied a few folders from inside the windowsapps.old into the new folder with the original name so my photo viewer would work I also saw there were a few other folders that I may need like calculator and the Microsoft.NET.Native.Runtime. and Microsoft.NET.Native.Framework folders and a few others. well my icons moved on me first time I restarted from a proper shutdown. so I think renaming the windowsapps folder will do the trick for some of you.

microsoft says there fixing the system restore problem with the new update so I am hoping this will work too.

I want to add, all these problems started after I changed from a 2k monitor to a 4k monitor...

John

Xerravon said:

Hi, I too am having or was having this problem every time I started my windows 10 pro x64 pc but only when starting from a shut down state. Reset had no change to the icons on the desktop.

I tried everything I have read in the forums, the reg keys (which mine were correct anyway) unchecking the "allow theme to pps that are in that folder will not run, like photo viewer and others but you can get them back by renaming the folder back...

hope this helps

Still no fix for the relocating of desktop file icons every time the file gets written to? Having never used Win 8.x, was this a problem wit it too or is this broken thing new with 10?

Microsoft knows how everything in Windows works, why don't they fix this?

Galane said:

Still no fix for the relocating of desktop file icons every time the file gets written to? Having never used Win 8.x, was this a problem wit it too or is this broken thing new with 10?

Microsoft knows how everything in Windows works, why don't they fix this?

I got a .bat file from one of the old tutorials that fixes the desktop problem. It just doesn't fix folders.

i know this is an older thread, but i got here by searching the same problem--as i was having it as well.
never found a solution anywhere,
however, i did figure one out--and i hope this helps the multitude of people having this very same problem.
so, go into 'settings'
select 'personalization'.
select 'themes'.
scroll down and select 'desktop icon settings' underneath 'related settings'
uncheck 'allow themes to change desktop icons'
click 'apply'.
click 'OK'.
this SHOULD solve your problem.
hope this helps.

circe801 said:

i know this is an older thread, but i got here by searching the same problem--as i was having it as well.
never found a solution anywhere,
however, i did figure one out--and i hope this helps the multitude of people having this very same problem.
so, go into 'settings'
select 'personalization'.
select 'themes'.
scroll down and select 'desktop icon settings' underneath 'related settings'
uncheck 'allow themes to change desktop icons'
click 'apply'.
click 'OK'.
this SHOULD solve your problem.
hope this helps.

That does not work. My "Allow Themes to change desktop icons" has been unchecked since the first release of W10 and has never been checked and my icons move around sometimes.

My system has been quite stable for about 12 months, but about 2 weeks ago I put the system to sleep (note I have done this 100 times in the past) and when I woke the system up, it had "Scrambled Icons" all left justified. Used the restore feature of Desktop OK and now its ok again.

circe801 said:

i know this is an older thread, but i got here by searching the same problem--as i was having it as well.
never found a solution anywhere,
however, i did figure one out--and i hope this helps the multitude of people having this very same problem.
so, go into 'settings'
select 'personalization'.
select 'themes'.
scroll down and select 'desktop icon settings' underneath 'related settings'
uncheck 'allow themes to change desktop icons'
click 'apply'.
click 'OK'.
this SHOULD solve your problem.
hope this helps.

I've never even changed my theme so that's got nothing to do with my own instance of this issue.

I noticed 10 doing this from the first upgrade I did back in July 2015. Put a file somewhere on the desktop, open it, do something to it, save it. 10 throws it over to the left into the first available spot.

Windows from 95 through 7 never did this. Windows before 95 never moved icons in Program Manager or in program group windows. Microsoft knows how to make this work properly, so why is it broken *now*?