XP rearranges desktop icons when switching users, why?

[Guest]

For my XP home edition (the french edition familial to be precise) the screen
is set to 1224x768. However, if you place an icon at the bottom right hand
corner of the screen and then change user (without logging the session out),
when you come back to your session later the icon has been moved. If you have
lots of icons then you get them nicely scrambled for you.

It's as if during the user changing process the screen is being resized from
1224x768 to some other size and the icons that are off the desktop are moved
back onto it at some system chosen location. However, there's no
justification for it.

Why is it happening and how do you stop it (other than resetting the screen
size to something that it doesn't screw around with).

I've searched the knowledge bases but without coming up with anything
relevant.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[Sharon F]

For my XP home edition (the french edition familial to be precise) the screen
is set to 1224x768. However, if you place an icon at the bottom right hand
corner of the screen and then change user (without logging the session out),
when you come back to your session later the icon has been moved. If you have
lots of icons then you get them nicely scrambled for you.

It's as if during the user changing process the screen is being resized from
1224x768 to some other size and the icons that are off the desktop are moved
back onto it at some system chosen location. However, there's no
justification for it.

Why is it happening and how do you stop it (other than resetting the screen
size to something that it doesn't screw around with).

I've searched the knowledge bases but without coming up with anything
relevant.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Switching screen dimensions will shift icons. When not shifting screen
dimension, icon position is typically remembered. However, Windows has
historically been known to lose icon position between sessions for no
apparent reason.

See the following page from MVP Kelly Theriot. Scroll down to the "save
settings on exit" section:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_s.htm

 

[Guest]

However, Windows has
historically been known to lose icon position between sessions for no
apparent reason.

This does seem to be pretty consistent. It only seems to happen when you
leave the session open and start another session, then come back to the
original later.

Very odd.