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.
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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25 Responses to “How to save your desktop icon layout in Windows XP”
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Save Your Desktop Icons Layout and Wallpaper Says:
[...] and change your wallpaper often, IconRestorer would be a useful utility for you. It allows you to save the layout of your desktop icons and the current wallpaper. Then, you can change the layout and the wallpaper and return to the [...]
April 9th, 2010 at 5:30 am
Excellent tip, I’ve been looking for something like this for a while. Simple and unobtrusive.
Works great!
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!
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.
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!
NICE!
Out of curiosity where does it store the saved layouts?
I’ve been wondering this for ages. tia
Does this work with Vista ??
If not do you know of a way to do it ??
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).
Have tried this program and it does not work on our XP system.
Re. the post from Pkzip on 30 Aug 08.
I found the same problem until I clicked on “restore desktop icon layout” a second and even a third time.
The original saved layout is gradually restored in stages.
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.
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.
This works sometimes and fails sometimes.
Is there an update or newer, better option to save desktop icon layouts?
Thank you so much….I have been looking for this software quite a long period of time….THis tips helped me a lot.
Unfortunately this doesn’t work at all for me. I’m using windows 7 64 bit.
Thank you Thank you! Why this is not included in the base Windows Software, I’ll never know.
What a relief!!! I like my icons ‘Just-so’ and this is a savior!!!!!
Thanks, works like a charm on Windows XP SP3. Saved us a lot of time!
I had an interesting thing happen using this that might save others time figuring out. I added a second monitor temporarily (to the left of my usual monitor) and extended my desktop onto it. Way later when I needed to restore icons they all disappeared! Took me a while to figure out that they were moved to the other “non-existent” screen. To fix, go into Display Properties -> Settings and uncheck “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor”.
This is great! I have about 90 icons in very specific order and I’m in love in this
!
BTW. Note that you might need to make some space for your icons before you restore them (especially if you align icons to grid). Running restore few times also worked for me.
You made me won my day!
Every day 5 minutes of my time were being redirected to accomplish the desktop layout organinzing task, and know its gone!!
Thanks a lot,
JP
I use Windows XP Pro and have exactly the issue that connecting a projector reorganizes my desktop. I need to be able to reset icon locations as they were before connecting the projector, so this application is right for me.
When I go to download the software fix, it takes me to SpeedPC. Is that what you used to restore the desktop icon locations?
I use RegDefense to keep my registry clean, so am worried that installing SpeedPC as well could lead to system conflicts.
Solution when it stops working.
You probably figured out for yourself that restarting the computer solves the issue. But who want to restart every time it happens ?
We also know that if restart is solving it there must be some component that is not functioning or locking an important file.
the important file in this tool is layout.dll (under system32).
I’ve used another great tool (unlocker) to view what is locking this file: it’s the explorer.exe itself.
Killing the explorer and recreating it (taskmgr) solved the issue in 2 seconds.
Good luck,
I also would like to know WHERE the configuration is stored. Our files are stored on a company server and whenever that server goes down, I loose my desktop arrangement. I tried this program, but the saved configuration was lost also. If I knew where it was, perhaps I could back it up somewhere else and restore it first.