Restore the position of desktop icons after changing screen resolution

Aug

2008

Restore the position of desktop icons after changing screen resolution

microsoft If you are a hard gamer and you like playing on your Windows Vista with games which change your screen resolution when they are launched, you should know only too well that, once you close your games and the screen goes back to its original resolution, all of your desktop icons are switched and relocated in different sections of the desktop. At this point the only way out you have got to put them back to their original positions, is to drag them one by one. Let’s learn how to save and restore your desktop icons’position with this simple hack.

Download this file for Vista 32-bit or Vista 64-bit.
Open the zipped file and extract all of its content in C:\Windows\System32 directory
Double click on the Layout.reg file. This file will modify your Windows registry.
Now, click Start.
Right click on Computer.
In the Computer menu, you should be able to see 2 new options: “Save Desktop Icon Layout” and “Restore Desktop Icon Layout”.
Arrange the icons on the desktop the way you like and save their position by clicking on “Save Desktop Icon Layout”.
Done! Next time your icons will be all messed-up just click on “Restore Desktop Icon Layout” and they will go back to their original position.
To uninstall the registry hack delete the layout.dll file. After that download this zipped file, open it, double click on the registry file, turn off and on your computer and you are done.

Tags: hack, Vista

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

Related Articles Latest Articles

If you can not find what you are looking for, you might want to try Google Advanced Search and get thousands of results, specifically selected for you.

Google Advanced Search

6 Comments to “Restore the position of desktop icons after changing screen resolution”

kevin Says:
February 13th, 2009 at 5:00 pm

my icons always get changed when i download new video drivers or switch between monitors!!! this quick “hack” is so helpfull because i have sooo many icons!!!! this is a must have for people with +20 icons and have the same reseting issue that i have!
Web Talk Says:
February 13th, 2009 at 10:07 pm

Hey Kevin! Glad it helped you fix your issue!
Jason Says:
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:32 pm

I think I have a different problem where after I got Trojan.Vundo Malware which completely made all my Desktop Icons disappear as well as making my right click mouse button to fail to function. What can I do to restore all my Desktop Icons? I”ve tried going to control panel-Change Desktop Icons by checking the empty boxes that have the Icons missing and failed. Please help me fix these two problems.
Web Talk Says:
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:54 am

Hello Jason,
I have searched the Web and your problem is pretty serious. I have not understood if you managed to uninstall the trojan though. Anyway, lets suppose that the trojan is still there. The solution would require me to write a tutorial since it involve many steps.
Try the solution described here.
You may also try these other solutions reported in these articles:
Solution one
Solution two
Solution three
Luke Says:
February 7th, 2010 at 5:02 pm

Hi, does this useful hack work for Windows 7? I have two users on the same computer, I always use the default resolution of 1400×900, but the second users always uses the 1280×720, and each time I log in all my icons are messed about.

This has to be a security bug that has existed in Windows since NT came in, I do hope MS fix it in Windows 7 SP1. Anyone know the best way to report bug to MS?
Web Talk Says:
February 8th, 2010 at 1:39 am

Hello,
to tell you the truth I do not know. There are a lot, really a lot of tricks and hacks that works on Windows 7 as well. Give it a try…