Like the title says, my desktop icons will rearrange themselves automatically when I restart (and periodically whenever I'm looking through file folders) and I have to set the taskbar to show quick launch each time I reboot. This is annoying since I like to have my icons in my own order but they just don't stay how I want them. Any suggestions about what I could do?
I've had this happen a couple of time over the past few years. Sometimes going back to a restore point will help (not a great option). I can't believe how many post there are about this on the internet & how many different suggestions there are.
This recently happened to me on a DELL D830 (XPpro SP-current) after a registry clean with Regseeker. The align to grid feature would not stay off (just hitting F5 put "align to grid" back on & all the icons rearranged). In addition, the quicklaunch feature of the taskbar would not be visible after a logoff/reboot & had to be manually started each time.
Most folks have already made sure the "auto arrange" & "align to grid" features on the desktop are off. (they often don't stay off however)
THE REST OF THE FIX REQUIRES EDITING THE REGISTRY - (You need administrator privileges)
DO NOT ATTEMPT WITHOUT BACKING UP REGISTRY.
IF YOU'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE - GET HELP!
I tried the posts elsewhere about making sure the "NoSaveSettings" of the
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
key in registry was set to 0 & also made sure the same was done in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer KEY ,none of which worked for me.
I also tried all of the Icon/desktop/toolbar restore fixes on kelly-scorner ( www.kellys-korner-xp.com/ ) none of which worked.
Finally I found a few threads elsewhere ( http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-3091342.phpabout ) which pointed to the problem of ownership/permissions being corrupted. Initially this was confusing because when I tried to edit the folder -
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell \Bags\1
I was not allowed to open the key (& therefore could not even see the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell \Bags\1\Desktop folder)
That was the problem for me. I had to set the ownership/permissions back to administrators (& my username) & allowed all subkeys to have the same ownership/permissions (right click the key /permissions /advanced).
I didn't have to add or modify any keys in the Desktop folder , just restoring the permissions fixed the "rearranging desktop icons" problem.
Now ... the Quicklaunch bar problem still has me beat... no workable solution found yet (even a system restore point prior to the registry clean didn't fix that one). I'll have to keep looking....
Hope this helps somone.