Rob - I believe that the icons disappear when you have more than the maximum
allowed and that there is a tweak somewhere to increase the number (from
1000 to 2000 say). That should help solve the problem. However if you change
your screen resolution or hook onto the taskbar and resize it inadvertantly,
than your layout can go askew. Then it helps to have a restore system.
The download mentioned below enables you to restore your desktop icon layout
and works in Vista as well as XP. You will find that the restore process is
iterative, so you might have to restore up to three times in quick
succession so the icons stop bumping into each other to get your layout back
to perfection. The appended quote comes from the third the post down the
page at:
http://discuss.pcmag.com/forums/385101001/ShowPost.aspx
Doug
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Save desktop icon positions
Tool: Two files from the MS Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit (26KB). Download
them from here:
http://www.pcnineoneone.com/tweaks/layout.zip
This is one of my favorite tweaks because I'm a real neatness freak about my
desktop icons. Basically this tweak allows you to save the positions of your
desktop icons, so you can restore the icons to their saved positions at any
time in the future. To give you this added functionality in XP, do the
following:
1. Download the file Layout.zip from the link under Tools above, and extract
the contents to an empty directory.
2. Copy Layout.dll to the \Windows\System32 directory on the hard drive
which contains Windows XP.
3. Double click on the Layout.reg file to automatically make the appropriate
changes to your registry.
4. Now go to your desktop and arrange the icons as you'd like them to be
saved.
5. Once done, right click on the Recycle Bin and select 'Save Desktop Icon
Layout'. The positions of all the icons are now saved. You can move the
icons around freely, however whenever you want them restored to their
original saved positions, right click on Recycle Bin again and select
'Restore Desktop Icon Layout'. Bingo!
This is particularly handy if you're installing new graphics card drivers
for example and your desktop icons get messed up, or you change resolutions
and they get bumped around, or if you accidentally move an icon while trying
to double click on it.
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