Windows 10: Desktop icons are set wide apart and words overlap

How do I change my icon desktop setting back to normal?

:)

 

missing system wide icons

Hi Janet,

You might have accidentally change some settings on your computer.

We suggest following these troubleshooting steps on how to resolve the issue:

Method 1: Check View option.

• Right-click the desktop.
• Select View and then Show desktop icons.
• Make sure the option is checked.

If issue persist, follow the method below.

Method 2: Check Settings.

• Click Start, search for Settings.
• Select Tablet mode on the left pane.
• Turn off Hide app icons on the taskbar in tablet mode and
  Automatically hide the taskbar in tablet mode.

Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

Remove Linux Desktop Icons

I am not sure whether this will work (Ubuntu does not have icons like that on the desktop by default), but I suggest opening the trash bin and sweeping the icons into the window showing the trash bin.

 

How to shrink the bounding box of desktop icons?


I just reimaged my office computer from Win 7 to Win 10. Most things are fine but one thing annoys me greatly:

The desktop icons are embedded in an insanely wide bounding box. I.e. if I select a desktop icon it gets surrounded by a light-bluish transparent box that is at least three times as wide as the icon.
It is thus impossible to place an icon close to the screen border, because if its "bounding box" overlaps the border, Windows will automatically place the icon elsewhere (another one of those unwanted behaviors, but that's a different story).
Due to this huge box I also have to place my desktop very widely interspaced (i.e. at least the equivalent of two icons' width apart) or else I get a hard time hitting the right one, because clicking on it then frequently triggers the overlapping left or right icon. :-(

On my home system that bounding box is barely wider than the displayed icon, maybe 20% of the icons's width on each side and I am thus used to place my icons in groups and also much closer to each other.

Any ideas how one can shrink or do away with that surrounding box?

Just in case: of course I have already switched to small icons and disabled automatic placement and grid alignment. :-(
I also fiddled with the registry settings at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics, specifically with IconSpacing as suggested in misc. google hits that I found but changing that value does not seem to have any influence whatsoever (I tried values between -20 and -2000, the original value being -1115).