Windows 7 - Desktop icons not aligning properly

I recently formatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows on my hard drive and now I have a strange issue. I have align to grid selected (as I did before) and now I cant put icons in the lower row. Whenever I try they always move up about an inch from the taskbar.

Is there a way to change the size of the grid or something? I would like to do this without third party software, as it worked fine before. Somewhat baffled here. Any help would be appreciated.

Are you using a custom DPI (dots per inch) setting? Try pressing the Ctrl button, and use the mouse scroll wheel to resize the icons larger or smaller. See if icon size is the issue. A Guy

I do resize my desktop icons with this method. and always have, but they would always go to the bottom of the screen. The larger I make my icons now, the farther they ride up from the top (and also away from the right edge).
Why would it do this now when it never did before?

Do you also have Auto arrange icons checked? I can't recreate your problem at my custom DPI

A Guy

no I leave auto arrange unchecked. I know it seems strange, as I have had this version of windows for over a year with no problems. It seems like there should be no issue being that it is a fresh install.

Give it some time, hopefully someone else will be along with an answer. A Guy

Run > control color
In the dropdown, change Icon spacing (vertical) to a lower figure (say, 10).
You may have to turn off "align to grid" and move the icons on desktop to about where you want, then turn it back on to see the change.