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Old February 28th 18, 04:19 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Mike Isaacs
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Posts: 1
Default Desktop icons

I used EZdesk from Win 98 to XP for many years, like John Gilliver, but
had to switch to IconRestorer (a free program), to get the layout I
wanted, when I started using Win 7.


Mike

In message , "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
writes
In message , VanguardLH
writes:
Archer wrote:

When I start Windows 7 (32 bit) the desktop icons appear llarge and
are auto arranged eventhough I normally use small icons and arrange
them in a particluar way.

But every time I restart Windows auto arranged large icons appear on
desktop.


Right-click on the desktop, select View, pick what you want for options
regarding icon size and auto-arrange.


Thanks for that! So obvious. I'd been wondering why changing the size
of "Icon" (right-click on [empty part of] desktop, Personalize, Window
Color [!], Advanced appearance settings... [that last step only
necessary if you're using an Aero theme]) didn't work. It's obviously
an oversight that that parameter was left in the list there!

Looks like you've only got a choice of three sizes - Large, Medium, and
Small. (Fair enough, otherwise designers would have to spend all their
time making icons for different sizes, and whatever file contained them
would be huge.)

If you _do_ find your icons are getting moved anyway (this seems to
have been an intermittent problem since Windows 95, with assorted
causes), I know of three third-party solutions that fix it, in
different ways:

EZdesk, by Melissa Nguyen. Only included for completeness, as
unfortunately it seems _not_ to work in Windows 7 (32 or 64); it did
from '9x to XP (I don't know about Vista). Trialware, though works for
ever without nags; I did try to actually pay, but I think the author
has long abandoned it (home website no longer works, but available from
various sources, some dodgier than others).

Iconoid, from http://www.sillysot.com/; 2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10.
Reasonably simple to use for saving icon positions, though can do lots
more with icons (including hiding them all to give a clean view of your
chosen wallpaper; disconcerting if you select that option without
realising!). Freeware (donations accepted). I've found it intercepts
capital A, but only after a while, and I think that's probably to do
with other keyboard problems peculiar to me.

DesktopOK: https://www.softwareok.com/?Download=DesktopOK - 98 to 10.
Freeware (I can't see a donate button either). Has the ability to save
layouts as actual files, rather than just in the registry as (I think)
the others do.

All three can save layouts for different resolutions; EZdesk (not sure
about the others) detects when you change resolution and asks if you
want to restore the layout you saved for the resolution you've just
changed to.


One thing I have found (in 7 at least), of the many things that
scramble icon positions: if you've restored a set of icons that were
saved at one grid size, to a system where you have a different size,
they will restore to where they were when you saved them, but almost
_any_ change - such as just moving any icon (even just a little bit by
mistake) - will cause _all_ of them to move. (And it takes some time of
trial and error to find out what spacing you did have when you saved
them, if you've changed it since! [You set the grid by following my
"Thanks ..." paragraph above: there are two settings, Icon Spacing
(Horizontal) and Icon Spacing (Vertical).]) [I was using iconoid for
saving/restoring positions when I discovered this jiggling, but I think
it'd happen whichever you'd saved/restored with.]


--
Mike Isaacs