Member Avatar for Sebastian42

In THIS WinXP system, when I move desktop icons slightly, it's like they are on elastic bands, and they snap back into place. In another similar WinXP system of mine on a different computer, the icons stay put in any higgeldy-piggeldy position I drag them. The settings on the desktop menu for 'Arrange icons by...' are identical for the two WinXP systems. How might I fix the faulty (the latter) one ?

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If the simple View-menu checks already suggested by and did not change the behaviour, try deeper, non-destructive diagnostics to narrow the cause between "profile-only", "third-party", and "system" problems.

Create a temporary local account and test. If icons behave normally there, the issue is confined to the original user profile (corrupt settings, a startup tweak, or a shell extension). If the problem follows every account, treat it as system-wide.

Do a clean boot to isolate third-party software. Use msconfig to disable non-Microsoft startup items and services, reboot, and test. If the snap disappears, re-enable items in small groups until the offender appears. Also look for desktop-management utilities (icon savers, dock utilities, tweaks) and temporarily uninstall them. Autoruns from Sysinternals is a reliable way to inspect startup items and shell extensions: Autoruns for Windows.

If it looks profile-specific, compare and (carefully) copy the display/layout-related registry values from the working machine to the broken one. The desktop/grid spacing is controlled by values under the current user hive; export the relevant key from the working profile, back up the broken profile first, then import and log off/on to apply changes. Always export a backup before editing the registry.

Other useful steps: restart Explorer or log off/on, clear the per-user icon cache if present, check for video driver or resolution changes that force icon reflow, and run SFC if core shell components are damaged. If none of the above helps, create a fresh user profile and migrate documents — that is often the fastest, low-risk fix for persistent per-user corruption.

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Member Avatar for lolafuertes

If you right clich on an empty part or your screen, there is a context menú with a View submenú, that holds an option to 'align to the grid'.

Please, verify if it is checked or not.

Hope this helps

Member Avatar for TurcoLoco

Empty part of the screen, right-click > VIEW:
"Auto arrange icons" option, when checked, will stack them to the left hand side of the screen and will NOT give you any freedom to move them anywhere you want. To be able to move the icons, you need to UNcheck this option. With this option checked, if you move an icon to another place on the desktop, it will automatically move it back to the left side where it was stacked before which will seem like the "snap" action you mentioned.

"Align icons to grid" option, when checked, will position the icons according to the screen grid, to have 100% freedom in where you want to move the icons to, you have to UNcheck this option as well.

Edited by TurcoLoco because: n/a
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