Desktop icons misbehaving after Creators Update

Jim L said:

As a Shareware developer, I have several Desktop and Laptop computers. Yesterday, I upgraded this, my Email laptop, to the Creator's Update.

As I prefer immediate access to everything, I have several hundred Shortcuts on my desktop (neatly arranged). I immediately ran into one of the Icon shuffling problems. Fortunately, I was able to use IconRestorer to reposition my Icons.

In my case, any movement by me of any of the Desktop Icons resulted in random reorganization of many of the Icons.

I did manage to find a workaround for my problem. I changed the TaskBar to Auto-Hide. Now I can move the Icons however I wish. I do not like this solution as I am accustomed to seeing the TaskBar.

This may not help with the other problems discussed above but should be worth a try.

Jim L.
SharePrep - Rename Files for importing into SharePoint

I see all the same things that you do. Thanks for the Auto-Hide tip. :)

I never managed to solve this (actually solve in a permanent manner) so I downgraded to Anniversary Update (installed from scratch) and never had issues since.

Bree said:

Yes, I've seen the desktop icons behaving unpredictably too, move one and the others can jump to new positions. I find that turning off 'Align icons to grid' tames this wayward behaviour. It's safe to briefly turn on 'Align icons to grid' to tidy up the arrangement, as long as you turn it off again straight away.

Bree,

I just tried your solution on my Creators Updated system. This did not eliminate my problem. My situation may be unique in that I have so many Icons on the Desktop and some of them actually extend under the TaskBar.

Thanks,

Jim L.
SharePrep - Rename Files for importing into SharePoint

Jim L said:

Bree,

I just tried your solution on my Creators Updated system. This did not eliminate my problem. My situation may be unique in that I have so many Icons on the Desktop and some of them actually extend under the TaskBar.

Thanks,

Jim L.
SharePrep - Rename Files for importing into SharePoint

Your situation is not unique and I have only 8 desktop icons. It's a hot mess. :)

JSheridan said:

Your situation is not unique and I have only 8 desktop icons. It's a hot mess. :)

I have found a better workaround for my Desktop Icon problem. I changed the IconVerticalSpacing registry setting to yield even smaller Icons. This created a little additional space between my 9th row of Small Icons and the Taskbar.

Now I have my Taskbar back and I can move my Icons at will without fear of the shuffling I had experienced on the Creators Update.

In the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

I changed IconVerticalSpacing from -1125 to -1100

Then rebooted and turned off "Auto-Hide Taskbar".
-----------------------------------------------

Note - I had tried -1050 which worked but created a significant gap between the lower row of Small Icons and the Taskbar.

The tutorial "Change Desktop Icon Spacing in Windows 10" in this forum gives detailed instructions for making this type of change.

Jim L.
SharePrep - Rename Files for importing into SharePoint

Jim L said:

I changed IconVerticalSpacing from -1125 to -1100

Then rebooted and turned off "Auto-Hide Taskbar".
-----------------------------------------------

Note - I had tried -1050 which worked but created a significant gap between the lower row of Small Icons and the Taskbar.

The tutorial "Change Desktop Icon Spacing in Windows 10" in this forum gives detailed instructions for making this type of change.

Thanks for experimenting, I'll give it a try and turn 'align to grid' back on. The tutorial you mentioned is here:
Change Desktop Icon Spacing in Windows 10

BTW, a reboot is not necessary for it to take effect, you just need to restart explorer.exe
Restart explorer.exe Process in Windows 10

Sadly icon spacing isn't the issue I'm having or the issue the OP was about. They just need to get their act in gear and fix the wild movement of icons. I should be able to drag a stack of icons into an existing stack and just push the icons down like I've been able to do for almost two decades, not have to move them one by one otherwise they extend in a row across my desktop.

Also the 'randomly move every icon out of place so this new icon can go top left of the screen' is a pain in the butt.

If it weren't for the fact that I make use of other features from the Creators update then I would have just reverted to the previous version and disabled updates.