Arrange Icons by Name

[winsupertweaker]

Is there a cure for the "arrange icons by name" and keeping them in the same order.

Example: XP allowed the first left hand column to show,

My Documents
My Computer
Recycle Bin
Internet Explorer

From there, any shortcut you sent to the desktop would arrange underneath Internet Explorer. In Windows 7, whenever you add a shortcut to the desktop, right click and choose "arrange icons by name", it inverts the order. Same was true of Vista.

On Windows 7 my order of icons is similar to XP. Top left, first column starts with;

Owner Files
Computer
Recycle Bin

Each time I add a new icon to the desktop and "arrange icons by name", it inverts that order. XP kept the main icons in place and arranged the new shortcuts accordingly.

Is there a registry edit to hold previously arranged icons in place and insert the new icons alphabetically without changing the previous order?

 

[Mike Connor]

This may help you out;

Software DesktopOK 2.41 Save and restore the desktop icon positions.

Also, you can set icons to "Auto Arrange";



Regards....Mike Connor

 

[winsupertweaker]

Thanks for the tip, but I think it's glitch in Vista and Windows 7. Auto-arrange simply yanks an icon back from the group and puts into a column. I am talking about 98 and XP being able to arrange the icons by name and the top four main icons in the first left hand column never moved. Everything gets reveresed in Vista and 7. Not right I think.

 

[unifex]

The way I remember it, in Windows XP (maybe it was in TweakUI, not sure about that) there was an option of arranging "default" folders on your desktop. You could set whether "My Documents", "My Computer", or something else was shown first. This basically meant that Windows XP treated these folders differently from all other folders. I do not know whether this behavior can be reproduced in Windows 7 without third-party software.

Personally, out of all those icons I only keep the recycle bin on my Desktop and thus I never have your problem. I have "Auto-arrange icons" disabled, which means icons are always where I put them. For example, my Recycle Bin (which I usually rename, since I don't like that name, I don't "recycle" files, I delete them) is for example in the upper left corner of my desktop and that's where it stays regardless of how many new icons may appear on the the desktop later.

Again, Windows 7 is not XP and I am actually surprised people expect it to behave as XP. In reality, there are billions of users and everyone has their own favorite feature. It is impossible to satisfy everyone. So it's quite possible that this particular feature (as well as many others as you can find out by browsing through this forum) was not included in Windows 7. If this is critically important to you, hey, XP still works. Even Win2K still works. But unless your interest in this feature is shared by literally tens of millions of other users, don't expect Microsoft to jump and "fix" it. This is not to pick on you personally, this is simply how it works.

As an example, I attach a snip of the upper left corner of my desktop where all the "permanent" icons are. Other files may appear on my desktop for a short time, but then they go on their merry way, never changing the basic set-up.

 

[Imperfect1]

Am I missing something? Whether W2K, XP, Vista, Win7, I have always been able to arrange the icons on the Desktop any way I wanted --- so long as all of the Desktop options are disabled (like auto-arrange, arrange to grid, etc.), one should be able to manually move the icons anywhere you want on the Desktop.

 

[Mike Connor]

Am I missing something? Whether W2K, XP, Vista, Win7, I have always been able to arrange the icons on the Desktop any way I wanted --- so long as all of the Desktop options are disabled (like auto-arrange, arrange to grid, etc.), one should be able to manually move the icons anywhere you want on the Desktop.

That is basically correct. Windows however occasionally "forgets" the icon placements.

If it doesn't work at all, then you have some other problem.

I just added some icons to my desktop, disabled the various options, and moved them all to my second screen;



If you want to sort them alphabetically then you can just sort them in the desktop folder;



Regards....Mike Connor

 

[winsupertweaker]

I guess I am just not being clear on this. When you right click and arrange icons by name, it reverses the order. So if your first upper left hand column icon begins with the letter "A", and you arrange icons by name again, the first icon in the upper left column becomes "Z".

Whoever referred me to XP must not know what I do for a living lol, good of you to suggest going retro. :sarc:

Redundant second attempt:

So. Lets' just say you have one column of icons and the top left row begins with "A" and last icon in that column begins with "Z". You arrange icons again by name and the order is inverted A-Z/Z-A.

Really hope that illuminatess my question.

 

[Espio]

Let me see if I understand you,
You've got your icons on your desktop, and they're in your order. Computer at the top, Recycle bin at the bottom. You've downloaded 4 text files and saved them onto your desktop, and you want them in alphabetical order, instead of the order that they downloaded in, Right?

SO, logically, you right click on the desktop and click "Sort By>Name" and then it reverses everything, Text files at the top, Computer at the bottom. THEN you do the "Sort By>Name" again, and it puts it the way you want it, Computer at the top, then your recycle bin, and only then, your text files are in alphabetical order.

Is that right?

If it is, then I think it may be tough luck. You basically want to download a file, and insert itself in the desktop in the appropriate alphabetical location. Kinda like a Mac.

 

[unifex]

So. Lets' just say you have one column of icons and the top left row begins with "A" and last icon in that column begins with "Z". You arrange icons again by name and the order is inverted A-Z/Z-A.

That's what I understand as a correct behavior of the "arrange by name" function.

It looks like you want to apply this to a select group of files within a folder. I don't think this is possible in Windows Explorer.

 

[winsupertweaker]

So. Lets' just say you have one column of icons and the top left row begins with "A" and last icon in that column begins with "Z". You arrange icons again by name and the order is inverted A-Z/Z-A.

That's what I understand as a correct behavior of the "arrange by name" function.

It looks like you want to apply this to a select group of files within a folder. I don't think this is possible in Windows Explorer.

Nope. This is all to do with the desktop icons. So I guess we are all settling for the fact that a right-click, arrange icons by name reverses their order alpha-numerically. A to Z, then Z to A.

Hmm. Just don't know why someone would want to reverse the order of their arranged icons...

 

[lehnerus2000]

I'm confused

I'm confused.

If you click on Sort by >> Name, the icons arrange in a certain order.
If you click it a 2nd time, the order reverses.
If you click on it a 3rd time, the order reverses again and so on.

It's exactly the same behaviour as columns in Details view in Windows Explorer.

 

[unifex]

So. Lets' just say you have one column of icons and the top left row begins with "A" and last icon in that column begins with "Z". You arrange icons again by name and the order is inverted A-Z/Z-A.

That's what I understand as a correct behavior of the "arrange by name" function.

It looks like you want to apply this to a select group of files within a folder. I don't think this is possible in Windows Explorer.

Nope. This is all to do with the desktop icons. So I guess we are all settling for the fact that a right-click, arrange icons by name reverses their order alpha-numerically. A to Z, then Z to A.

Hmm. Just don't know why someone would want to reverse the order of their arranged icons...

Don't forget that the "Desktop" is a folder (actually located in C:\Users\YourUsername\Desktop) and the "icons" are just files (typically shortcuts, *.lnk).

 

[forjonnyb]

Don't sort by name but by Item Type and your newly created icons should go within the group and Computer or User will stay at the top. Try it. I just did it a bunch of times.