I'm feeling a little dumb...I can't figure out how to do this.

[raz]

I'm using Win98 and I'm arranging my desktop icons the way I want them...some on the left part of the screen and some on the right. The problem is whenever I reboot all the icons go back to the left part of the screen. There must be a way to save the position of the icons but I can't figure out how. Any help out there?

 

[Davegod75]

i think there is a setting for auto arranging the icons if you right click on the background.

 

[raz]

Dave - I tried that but auto-arranging just snaps them back to the left.

 

[DAM]

arent you supposed to have autoarranged turn off?





dam()

 

[raz]

Yep, auto-arrange is unchecked.

 

[Ausm]

and it still does it?

Ausm

 

[gtb55447]

That is odd....

 

[Floyd]

That definitely should not be happening if you have Auto Arrange disabled. This is something that has always bothered me...seems I've seen a third-party application that will allow one to save the precise desktop arrangement but for the life of me I can't recall the name. This is a particularly common problem with Win95 but much less so for Win98 (in my experience). Nonetheless, it aggravates the hell out of me to have to redo my desktop following any time I boot into Safe Mode.

Your question has finally encouraged me to search the MS Knowledgebase for an answer. According to this article, desktop settings and MRU entries are stored in the two following registry keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Streams
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StreamMRU

I expect you could export these two keys as a backup (merge them back together in notepad) and double click the REG file to restore the settings. But then again, it would probably require that you reboot for the change to take effect 😛 I'm gonna try this myself, by importing the REG file right before I boot out of Safe Mode and see if the correct desktop is present when I boot again normally.

As to why your settings are being wiped every time you reboot, check to be sure there isn't a key NoSaveSettings in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. If there is, be sure it is set to 0 or delete it altogether.

Best regards,
Floyd

 

[BudB]

The program your thinking of is EZDesk. Here is the "About" info that I have on my copy.

Melissa Nguyen
E-mail: nguyen@compuserve.com

EzWare Technology
8-A Village Loop, Suite #160
Pomona, CA 91766, U.S.A.

I have been using this program for over three years and have had zero, nada, none problems with it. It saves desktop arrangements for any screen resolution and you can select from a number of arrangements that you've saved. Nice little program, cost about $15. Rock Solid.

 

[DZip]

On your desktop, line up your icons the way you want them,left click in the empty area, look for "line up icons", right click it. That will line your icons in the columns you put them in and keep the that way when you reboot.

 

[Doh!]

Do you have TweakUI? TweakUI has a "Save windows settings" option.