Windows 7: unable to move icons around screen

Hello, first timer here so hope I do it right.
Can anyone tell me how to move icons around the screen. In XP you could choose to line them up automatically or move them yourself. In 7 I cannot move them myself. Any help welcome.

Do you mean that they do not move at all

or

You move them then they go back?

If the second, right click on desktop. Then sort by, then uncheck everything.

Thanks for the reply. I mean they just go back again. I keep them in a folder in my documents and like to sort them MY way. I guess I could just rename them but in XP could move them easily. I did what you suggested on desktop but there was nothing ticked anyway. When I right click in the pics page, whatever I click as a choice, it also changes to 'descending'.

Go to the pics page, right click. Make sure sort by and arrange by are in agreement.

Thanks for reply. Don't have 'arranged by', but have synchronised 'sort by' and 'group by'. Both have 'date' and 'ascending' ticked. They will stay like that until I add other pictures to that folder. Then if I again click on 'sort by date' to merge the new ones in with the old ones, they will automatically go 'descending'.

Little by little, I get information. What did you put on your computer for the pictures? I have Windows 7 and it does not have syncronized by.

Have you dowloaded something that is suppose to make photos better than what 7 offers?

Hi again. No I have not added anything to windows 7. When I said synchronized I just meant I had set them both to exactly the same things to put them in agreement as you suggested. Eventually I may get round to using a better system for my pics, but for now they are just in files in explorer. I have this same problem with any files not just pics. It doesn't happen if I choose to sort by name, only for date!

Lets see if somthing is corrupt
Do this
SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

Thanks.
I have run scan and here are results.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

C:\Windows\system32>

All I want to do is 'click & drag'!

I have posted another 'thread' for another problem, (when sorting pictures they automatically go in descending order) could they be related?

@janscrivens - right click desktop and select View - see attachment.

I have things in the context menu that you probably wont have, but you should have View

pjd