How to save your desktop icon layout in Windows XP

Posted on October 10, 2007 at 10:36 am

This post was born from the fact that I really enjoy customizing the layout of the icons on the desktop, such as placing system icons at the top left, moving all application icons to the right side of the screen, etc, but I hate it when all of the icons get messed up whenever I connect my computer to a TV or projector.

Once your screen resolution changes, Windows automatically re-arranges all of your icons and all of that hard work is lost! However, there is a free tool that you can use to quickly save the icon layout on your desktop for Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, and XP called Icon Restore.

Icon Restore installs a DLL file called layout.dll that comes with the Resource Kit and the required registry entries. Once installed, you’ll find two new options when you right-click on any Windows system icon, Save Desktop Icon Layout and Restore Desktop Icon Layout.

By Windows system icon, this means you can right-click on My Computer, My Documents, or the Recycle Bin to access the new menu options.

restore icons positions

Once you have arranged the icons on your desktop in the desired way, go ahead and right-click on My Computer and left-click on Save Desktop Icon Layout. Now if your computer screen resolution ever changes or you have to start your computer in Safe Mode, etc, you can easily restore your previous icon positions by right-clicking and choosing Restore Desktop Icon Layout.

There are other programs out there that are more advanced and allow you to do things like create multiple icon layouts, etc, but this program is free and works well for most people!

I played around with the program by saving the desktop, deleting a program executable file that I had downloaded off the Internet, and then restoring the desktop to see what happened. If you delete anything off your desktop, that item will not appear when you perform a restore. This includes shortcuts, program files, text files, anything basically!

I prefer this type of behavior because there are times when I add a bunch of shortcuts to my desktop, but delete them later on. Icon Restore will not restore those deleted icons, but will keep the original positions of the other icons.

[tags]icon restore, save desktop layout, save icon layout, desktop icons[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

14 Responses to “How to save your desktop icon layout in Windows XP”

  1. walkermatt said on : February 18th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

    Excellent tip, I’ve been looking for something like this for a while. Simple and unobtrusive.


  2. Paul said on : July 15th, 2008 at 5:29 pm

    Works great!


  3. Rudy said on : August 1st, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

    I work with two screens and these (bleeping) icons constantly shifting around has been aggravating me EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!

    Highly recommend it, especially for those who work with multiple screens!


  4. Pkzip said on : August 30th, 2008 at 12:52 am

    Unfortunately, it doesn’t work 100%.
    Namely, if you have a lot of icons on the desktop, this fix will not remember all of it and you will end up re-arranging everything manually.

    Tested this on 3 different WindowsXP Pro SP2 installs.


  5. Steve said on : September 21st, 2008 at 1:41 pm

    I’ve been looking for something like this because I use a projector a lot. I have many icons on my desktop, and rearranging them after each resolution change has been a real chore until now.

    Thanks!


  6. Cal said on : February 4th, 2009 at 4:25 pm

    NICE!


  7. Ian Thompson said on : February 11th, 2009 at 11:09 am

    Out of curiosity where does it store the saved layouts?
    I’ve been wondering this for ages. tia


  8. silverfox said on : March 30th, 2009 at 1:35 am

    Does this work with Vista ??
    If not do you know of a way to do it ??


  9. Greg said on : April 22nd, 2009 at 1:37 am

    THANK YOU!!!

    This is an excellent tool, simple, unobstructive, and easy to use. Just make sure to download the separate uninstaller for if you would ever want to remove it (It says on the site that it currently cannot be removed via Add/Remove programs in Windows).


  10. George Flowers said on : May 28th, 2009 at 5:00 am

    Have tried this program and it does not work on our XP system.


  11. Joey said on : August 28th, 2009 at 1:52 pm

    If it doesn’t remember all the icon’s positions correctly on the first try, just try clicking “Restore Desktop Icon Layout” until it gets it right.


  12. Sorry said on : October 15th, 2009 at 2:09 am

    this program doesn’t work. i’ve tried it and it only seems like it works the first time, but if you try mixing up ur icons, then try restoring…its not the same.


  13. Graham said on : November 2nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm

    This works sometimes and fails sometimes.

    Is there an update or newer, better option to save desktop icon layouts?


  14. Suneesh said on : November 10th, 2009 at 7:44 am

    Thank you so much….I have been looking for this software quite a long period of time….THis tips helped me a lot.


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