Windows 7: "Align icons to grid" does not align to grid

When I right click on my desktop and go to View > Align icons to grid, it has no effect on icons whether I turn it on or off. The icons do not align in any sort of way and are haphazard around my desktop.

This started happening on its own about two days ago and has been driving me nuts because I want to have my icons aligned nicely without using auto-align (which re-orders all my icons in a way i don't want).



Any ideas?

Have several ideas,
But first make an anti virus scan and download and make the full scan with malwarebytes, Update first. Always good to go with that when the unexpected happens. Although, I think it will be negative in this case.

Have you changed your screen resolution?

Hello Redpandafire, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Think of your desktop with a piece of graph paper on it layed out in grids the size of an icon.

The Align to grid option still allows the icons to be placed anywhere on the desktop you drop them, but only keeps the icons from overlapping each other by keep them alligned (in) only the grid closest to where the icon was placed. If your icons are already in their grid, then it will not move them. You will need to instead manually arrange the icons how you like them with only this option checked.

The Auto arrange icons option takes the above one step further by automatically arranging all of the icons to the right side of the primary desktop from top to bottom in the first row and on.

Hope this helps,
Shawn