Solved Desktop Icons Can't Be Moved - Unlike Any Other Icon Thread I've Seen

[BorgCow]

Hi everybody!

I know some out there are thinking "Oh no, another 'my icons are moving' thread from someone who hasn't looked for previous posts", but this is different as far as I can tell. I have gone through every Desktop Icon related thread I can find, and this seems to be a new problem.

I will try to explain...

First off, this happened out of the blue, which is what makes me nervous. I normally keep my icons to the left, with any open projects or new things to the right, and I keep my Recycle Bin at the bottom right as well. I will often save an image temporarily on the desktop, then when I am done I will drag it to the trash. This is something that happens just about every day, usually more than once a day. A couple days ago I tried to drag a picture to the trash, and as soon as it started to move it disappeared, and I was dragging an empty cursor accross the screen. Then I noticed that the picture was now located in the upper left corner where I keep my "My Computer" icon, having pushed the My Computer icon down a notch. The whole row was moved down, with the bottom icon moved to the top of the second row. Which ever icon i try to move, it gets put at the top left. I end up having to move all the icons in the right order to get them all lined up again. What puzzles me is that I made no changes, but now I can no longer move any icon, or drag any icon to the trash.

I do have the "Align Icons to Grid" checked, as I always have. When I uncheck that and try to move an icon, it starts to stack all the icons on top of each other in the upper left corner, almost off the screen. When I re-check it, they all move back, but the same thing happens if I try to drag them. I do not have the Auto Arrange Icons feature checked, and I never have. I can right click the icon and delete it that way, but can't drag them to the trash, nor can I drag them to any other spot on the desktop.

I have looked here, and I spent a coupe hours on Google and I could not find anything with this problem being explained. I can't be the only person this has happened to, but I can't find a solution or explanation anywhere. If anyone can help I thank you sincerely!

 

[Lemur]

Welcome to SF.

Okay, this weird. Does the same thing happen if you move folders?

Has your mouse been acting strangely otherwise?

Have you tried doing a system restore to a date prior to this problem?

Have you run malwarebytes?

Or rebuild icon cache?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/49819-icon-cache-rebuild.html

 

[BorgCow]

Thanks Lemur (love the avater btw)

It does it with everything on the desktop. In fact, as I started to reply, I tried to move my Recycle Bin, and it shot up to the upper left corner. I have no idea how I am going to get it back!

I have done a full scan with Avast, and I have run Spybot. There are some things that Spybot says I have to be an administrator to remove, which of course I AM, but I think I know what they are, and they should just be an irritating toolbar I have never used.

I have never tried a system restore. Maybe that would be worth a shot. I will also look into Icon Cache to see if that helps. I haven't heard of that one before.

I guess you haven't ever heard of this either. I have never seen anything like it. Anything I try to move, after dragging just a few mm shoots up and takes the place of the top left icon. THe next thing I try to move will then push that one down a step as it takes that spot. They all work fine if I double click them or right click, they just can't be moved.

Thank you so much for the reply, and I will post the results as I try them.

 

[Lemur]

Yep, strange. It wouldn't hurt to rebuild the cache or do a system restore. Both very easy. Let us know...

 

[BorgCow]

Ok, just did a system restore to the oldest point available, which was the windows update on 1/10/11. I am almost positive that I have only had this problem since the 12th, so I figured that would work. Upon its first restart I got a black screen. Was able to bring up task manager, so I tried loggin off. It did bring it to the loggin screen, but at that point my mouse pointer would barely move, and was delayed about 3 seconds. Managed to shut it down completely. Fired it up again, and everything came back as it should, however, the problem persists.

One other note... When you first start up, once windows loads it used to log me in automatically. After one of the updates, I started getting the loggin screen with my name and avatar that I had to click on to log in. I haven't had to do that in a long time. So just in the last couple days I have had to click that to log in, and that seems about the same time this other thing started. I am really surprised that the system restore didn't fix it. I did notice that upon starting after the restore, my icons were in different positions, but when I tried to move them, the same thing happened.

I will move on to another solution and see what happens. Thanks again!

 

[Qdos]

Take a look at this link...

How To Change Icon Spacing On Desktop

 

[lehnerus2000]

sfc /scannow

Have you restarted your PC since the problem appeared?
Has anything else weird started happening?
Weird glitches sometimes go away after a restart.

You may need to open the "Command Prompt" and execute:

sfc /scannow
​

Tutorial:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

 

[BorgCow]

Update

I have now run AdAware as well as Spybot and Avast scans. Objects were found and removed, but nothing that changed anything. The system restore didn't work, though that may simply be because I didn't have an older restore point. I tried the Icon Cache suggested by Lemur, and I went through all the options I could find for customization/personalization, including making some other alterations just to see if they would take, which they did. I was able to change the size and spacing of the desktop icons, but once all of that was said and done I tried to move something and the problem persists! This really has me stumped.

I am off to try the System File Checker now (Thanks Lehnerus)

 

[BorgCow]

sfc/scannow complete and found no errors. As far as every bit of maintenance I have (now have) is concerned, things couldn't be better! Sadly this is not the case, as the problem persists.

 

[BorgCow]

Oh you guys are going to love this!

So I can grab a random icon from the row on the left, and if I move it REALLY FAST and let go of the left mouse button, it will drag it out of place and leave it wherever it ended up on the desktop. However, from there if I try to adjust it, it shoots right back to the upper left corner again.

 

[Qdos]

You don't happen to have "click-lock" enabled in your mouse properties do you?

 

[BorgCow]

I want to thank everyone for their input and suggestions. Rep given as earned by you all.

AS I said, I could grap things really quickly and kind of "flick" them around the screen. I would flick something, then try to move it again, and it would go back to the corner. Then I wondered if I could flick something, then grab that same thing, and flick it again. As it turned out, I could. This problem, which has been going for a couple days now and cost me hours of time sitting and trying to fix it, is SO RIDICULOUS, that I started "flicking" my Homegroup icon around the screen in a sort of Micro-Tantrum just to vent my frustration. After about 5 flicks, the whole screen did a little flicker and I thought maybe I had made it even more angry with me. Instead of being angry, everything is now working fine, the way it always has. I even restarted again just to see if my "fix" would go away. Nope. I can move things around like normal once again.

I am going to give this a 'top of my lungs' WTF???? and just hope it doesn't come back

THanks again for the help, that was awesome. I was shocked to get replies so quickly! Anyway, I will keep an eye on what it does here for a while, and I will report back in if either it happens again, or I figure outh just WTF it was that happened.

Many thanks!

-Tim

 

[Qdos]

Perhaps it's a Pinball Easter Egg...

 

[BorgCow]

You don't happen to have "click-lock" enabled in your mouse properties do you?

Just to answer, no, I had checked that but forgot to mention it. No, it's a mystery... Thanks!

 

[lehnerus2000]

Have you installed any new programs (or updates for programs) recently?

 

[BorgCow]

Odlly enough, it started after the last Windows update. After looking around for hours today, since nobody else was complaining, I figured it couldn't be related. I don't think I had anything else update at that time.

 

[lehnerus2000]

I have had various updates (Windows and others) glitch.
After re-imaging my HDD and trying again, the problems vanished.

An NVidia update (for XP) hosed both of my Windows installs (i.e. I couldn't boot either of my Windows installs).

 

[PeaB4YouGo]

Okay... Now I'm interested in mouse settings and drivers. This is going to sound strange, but replace your mouse, and try the same things. Try to use a different brand and new drivers.

I'm just going to eliminate the hardware aspect of this...

 

[BorgCow]

I guess I am going to have to call it solved. I have restarted a couple times, moved things around and for whatever reason, my "Flicking" seems to have kicked it back into normal function. If it flares up again, which I have a feeling it will, I will try messing with the mouse first thing. During one of the attempts I made to fix it, the mouse DID act up, so you might be on to something.

Thanks!

 

[bobtran]

I too have experienced this behavior and at the time traced it down to a video update from Microsoft.....needless to say, I never use the windows updates for video drivers and always download from manufacturer (in my case Nvidia), a link for this purpose can be found under "Graphic Cards" forum here at 7 forums. This has solved my issues with video drivers which as mentioned above can cause inconsistencies.

Glad you got it fixed.....agree with you "WTF".....I just hate it when problems fix themselves......it causes one to wonder......