Windows Vista - Icons locked and overlapping vertically. Help!
 

I couldn't figure out a good title.. I have encountered a very strange, annoying problem.

So I log onto my laptop, (i'll try to explain the best I can until the screen shot is up) and my desktop icons are all overlapping to the left vertically. So basically, instead of my usual 2 rows, with the icons spaced apart like normal, they are now all in one vertical line to the left and all overlap eachother (icon & text, not just text). I have never seen this before. I tried googling late last night but couldn't find much at all. It doesn't seem to be a common issue, I don't know, it was too late to investigate too too much.

How it got like this, I do not know. Someone must have been on there messing about with something. My only idea's are spyware or something buggy with vista. I have fiddled with all the desktop options, allign to grid, auto arrange, sort by, etc. I tried a number of different options... nothing worked.

What I can do is, move the icons apart, but it's all manual. They do not allign to any grid. As soon as I get them half assed back into two rows, and then click sort by type, they all go back to the left in one vertical row with icons all overlapping. :twised:

A screenshot will definitely help, and I'll have one in a couple hours. I just know Canreef has some very computer techy/savvy people on here, figure I would give it a go as google isn't providing much. So in a nutshell, all icons are in one row to the left, rather than the normal two rows I had, and all the icons are overlapping, icon , text and all. When I *manually* re-arrange to how they looked before, and sort by type, they all go back into one row with everything overlapping.

Kind of a stupid problem to have ..

have you tried right clicking on the desktop
then View
then select align to grid and auto arrange. Might need to select refresh after, maybe not

I have tried numerous combinatios with turning auto allign off, then allign to grid, then auto allign off, or both on, both off etc, etc. I tried quite a few combo's.. maybe not the right one after all though? I highly doubt it. I do know a good enough amount about PC's.. I have never seen this before though. I will however follow those steps just to double check. It seems like it should be that easy, but if I fiddled for good 20 minutes, I am not so sure.. I am pretty sure I would have got it after the first 5 minutes.

Do you have any anti Virus software? Maybe you got something? I have never heard of that either

I am using AVG Free. I may have jumped the gun by posting, I admit I have not done a virus/spyware scan yet. So my apologies for not doing a bit more troubleshooting on my own. I haven't noticed anything else going on with my laptop other than that.. but you never know!

I'll update this thread in a couple hours once I am home after a good scan and I'll try your suggestion. A screenshot might help as well. If you have any suggestions though, please feel free to post.

Is this your issue?

http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/my...ping-in-vista/

I found this last night, but no, not quite the same. It is similar though... I was tempted to try but didn't want to mess about with registries.

I don't have any unknown icons appear, they are not scattered. They are locked to the left side, vertically, all overlapping on top of eachother. That is the best I can describe it. No unknown icons, just my same old normal icons locked left all overlapping. I had two rows, nicely spaces horizontally and vertically, but somehow they just locked left and are squished into one row only.

A screenshot will definitely help.

Are you familiar with using RegEdit ?

If so, navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

Check these values:

"IconSpacing"="-1125"
"IconVerticalspacing"="-1125"

Hmm. How do I get to RegEdit again? I am using Vista. If it were XP I am sure I could find my way.. but I never know with Vista.

*edit* Sorry nazerine, I can use google to figure this out myself! My bad.

start menu/ run, type in regedit

In vista, just type it in the "start search" under programs in the start menu