Forum Moderators: phranque
Others I know with XP Pro do not have this problem and yet I have heard of others who do have it.
Most of them placed an icon in the system tray that could be used to stop the program. Others respond to the escape key. Mouse over your icons and see if one of them displays a tool tip about shutting down a joke program. If you find it, shut it down.
If that's what your problem is, you'll then need to find the file, delete it, and probably edit the registry to take it out of the startup list.
All very funny until I got caught.
I have not re-sized my desktop nor do I have any joke programmes.
I have auto arranged, locked icons and aligned to grid.
Still they play games - most annoying.
My pc shop tells me they have never heard of it either and yet some forums have made reference to it happening so I am informed. I can't even find see any forums that relate to the dreaded dance of the desktop icons!
A: Cut down on your drinking before you use your PC
B: Get your eyes tested
C: Ignore the voices that are telling you your icons are moving.
(I hope you have a sense of humour!)
Moltar, could you expand on your suggestion please?
On my XP, it pops up a message in the system tray once in a while, and asks to run some wizard to "clean up unused desktop items". What windows basically does is, it monitors which icons you click and which ones you don't. Then it determines that you haven't clicked on one of them for X period of time and offers you to "clean it up" - I guess remove it. I didn't run the wizard ever myself, but I was told that what it does.
Since I have not run it myself, I am not sure how it works internally. Maybe there is an option to somehow optimize your desktop once in a while without asking you. And maybe you have ran it once before and set it to that... But as I said, I have not run it and not sure of the insides.
I don't even know how to run it manually... I know it always pops up on restart, but not every time you restart.
In relation to your second item about 'games' - well, I never use the games so I don't think that comes into it.
Then, just as soon as I had finished re-arranging the icons as I wanted them - locked them - they did a dance again just as they have been doing since XP was installed.
Though my experience wasn't with desktop icons (I don't DO crap on my desktop), it was with QuickLaunch icons. Same thing exactly but in Win98SE - I had a certain number of icons on the QL bar docked screen-bottom, and they never stayed where I put them - they even moved around on the bar if I clicked them in an open session. I never did figure it out.... and when I upgraded to XPPro, it was "fixed".
You might try reinstalling or repairing XP. And is this Home or Pro? Home has some oddball stuff that isn't in Pro, and I wouldn't use it at all - while Pro IS a Win OS (with all the dreck etc. the detractors point out with unholy glee), Home actually acts like something else entirely part of the time.
Makes me wonder if space aliens HAVE landed and they're all living in XP Home....
Edit: oh, I see on reading back that you state XPPro. Sorry! Should read at least twice when I'm tired....
The answer was: There is indeed. Microsoft decided with XP to go for the minimalist look! To get the icons back on the desktop, click Start>Control Panel> and then Display. In the dialog that appears, select the Desktop tab, then click Customise Desktop button. At the top of this page you will see Desktop Icons options where you can put ticks in the icons you want on your desktop. Click OK and your desktop should be blessed with all your icons.
It would suggest to me that XP performs it's own desktop tidy up and 'immobilises' icons that do not get used much -and therefore this could have been causing my icons to jig and dance. Three days have passed now and the icons have NOT moved!
I have exactly the same problem with quicklaunch icons wandering with XP Pro and Win 2K before it, so you're lucky you've seen the back of it. Occasionally one icon will disappear completely until reboot. This has happened on a number of different installs on at least three physical machines with very few common applications between them. Not had it happen with desktop icons though, despite having the desktop filled with them in an ex-Mac user kind of way.
[edited by: jetboy_70 at 10:06 am (utc) on May 7, 2004]
you havn't learned have you ...
or you are some kind of masochist.....
these aren't OS's....they are "weird thing" repositories ....amongst other digusting stuff they get upto ..and let others get upto ..in your box ..
like "coded fortune cookies" ..... : ))
It's good to know you have a sense of humour ..you'll need it!
This might fix you...
From the microsoft support site:
"When you move an icon from one location on the desktop to another, the icon returns to its original location."
Find that here:
[support.microsoft.com...]
Or maybe this one...
"[desktop] may not be updated when icons are moved"
[support.microsoft.com...]
Hope that helps!
I now have the icons sitting still, behaving correctly and not moved for two full days.
The answer?
"Align to grid" and "show desktop icons" ticked only - nothing else.
rufus
I beleive they started doing it again when I had changed the window setting from 1024X768 to 800X600 for a short time to use a program that required that setting. After having tried every thing I could think of, and re-started the computer 20 to 30 times, I beleive the answer to lock them in place is to do the following:
Go to Control Panel->Desktop Themes, Save your current window theme as a new name, choose a different theme that comes with windows. Then go back to the saved theme. This seems to re-set the windows settings for the wandering icons, and locks them in place. I am even able to move them to new locations, and they do not move around.
Must be a bug in the windows operating system. Or could it be Rod Serling has a hand in these wandering icons?
I think this matter is well and truly resolved.
Thankyou all for the postings, suggestions and laughs I have had along the way.
