Windows 10: Desktop icons have wacky placement on CU?

Hey guys,

This is a strange one. Yes, I know my desktop is messy. But that's not really the point.

I made a short 1-minute video showing the problem, and it's much easier to show that way than trying to explain in writing and screenshots. See below:

[youtube]IBsmW6nishU[/youtube]


So as you can see, if I have the taskbar shown on "all" (both) monitors, the icon spacing is correct and how it was in all previous builds. But if I turn off showing the taskbar on all displays (since I prefer it that way), the icons reposition themselves to have this giant wasted empty space below the bottom set. If you try to drag an icon down there it won't let you place it there.

It seems if I set it the display to only the primary, it shows them correctly as well.

It's not a graphics driver issue, I got the newest one from NVIDIA's site. I previously had build 1607 with no issues - did a clean install of 1703, put my files back and look what's going on. Any ideas?

:)

 

Windows 10 Multiple desktops with different icons on the desktop

I would like to reiterate the question:

Windows 10 multiple desktops with different icons on each desktop

A solution is needed that supports virtual desktops for both window management/placement and icon management/placement in windows 10.

The window management is already available in Windows 10, which is appreciated.

The ability to select which icons to place (a.k.a. "make visible") on a given virtual desktop would be an efficiency boost for users.

(BTW - Dexpot does not support Windows 10, and has not seen any update since spring 2016).

Please let the community know about the progress in this matter.

Best regards,

DJ

 

Dual Screen Windows 10 PC. Desktop icons appear on screen 2 just for one user account

That's correct.

I was hoping that there would be some sort of registry key that'd control the placement, though nothing baring the following appears to come close to that, however this key doesn't appear to control screen placement for the icons.

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\1\Desktop

Its most unusual. Anything else worth checking ?

 

Shot in the dark, but is your resolution exactly the same on both? Usually when I see this kind of action one of the display's resolutions is off. Maybe not even the resolution, but the scaling may be off.

 

Yes it's the same on both.

Both are 1920x1080. No scaling.

Setting a custom scaling "helps" but then it screws everything else up. I type in 105% and it assumes that's equal to 175%... stupid Windows.

 

Are you wanting to expand the desktop across both screens, or create a second desktop space? You really need to clean up the desktop, because that is just going to create more issues when you start moving items across desktops or into a second monitor to help extend the "Real Estate".

 

Neither of those. I'm just trying to get the icons to have their normal spacing like you can see when the taskbar is put on both monitors.

And yes I know I have a lot of icons, that's not the point though, it would affect even one column of ~6 icons/shortcuts.

 

It will not happen if you wish to have a second desktop or expand the desktop. Also all of those icons that you have on your desktop will always change their placement and swap around. Suggest clean that up first before you decide if you want to extend the desktop or create a second desktop.

 

I don't know what you're talking about. It's always worked in the previous versions of Windows 10. I'm looking for an actual solution, not criticism.

 

What worked in the Anniversy edition? There are only two main ways to set up a desktop with two monitors.

Also you will have criticism when asking for assitance, since you asked for help and first step is to declutter the desktop to make sure that all of those icons are not the problem.

Nothing has changed in how the desktop behaves. The driver you have for your Graphics chip if built on the motherboard or if a PCIe cars, may not be updated by the manufacturer of the chipset, same as their utility software that lets you do more in managing multiple desktops.

 

What worked was the default spacing of the icons. Creator's Update probably changed something under the hood that made it wacky. "All of those icons" are not the problem, the problem is the spacing between them!

And like I said, I have the newest graphics driver already, it's not that. Would it be so surprising for there to be a bug that people haven't noticed due to most people not tweaking their settings the way I did? It hasn't been out that long. I'm sure someone else will find it too.

 

Again Microsoft did not change anything. The display drivers from the hardware manufacturers are behind the release of Creator's edition, because it has always been that way with any Windows OS. That is why you wait some time after the release of a new update to Windows 10 to give the hardware device manufacturers and OEM's time to roll out drivers that are compatible with the latest edition of Windows 10.

 

I can confirm it is definitely NOT the graphics driver.

I tried this in VMWare, made the VM fullscreen and gave it both of my monitors. VMWare uses its OWN graphics drivers as part of VMWare Tools.

I created an empty .txt file, made about 20 copies of it to take up some space on the desktop. EXACT SAME BEHAVIOR. I can make a video as proof if anyone wants.

For what it's worth, using tools like IconRestorer and DesktopOK, when you export the icon positions, those programs think the X,Y coordinates are the same whether the taskbar is shown on all displays or not.

So again, the graphics driver has nothing to do with this, it's got something to do with how Windows is treating the icon spacing. If anyone else has two monitors, try it out and tell me if you get any different results. All you have to do is toggle "show taskbars on all displays" on and off and you should see the spacing adjust itself.

If you're a neat freak and have less than about 10 icons on your desktop, just create a new text file and make a bunch of copies. Delete them later. No big deal.

And seriously, you can't tell me there's something inherently wrong with having more than one column of icons. Even the neatest of neat freaks usually have more than that. Whether you have 10 or 100 doesn't matter, all you need is one column to see the effect.

 

I was having the same problem. I noticed a new gap even though I normally have my taskbar displayed on both monitors, the gap is just worse when I hide the taskbar on the second monitor.

I also noticed my icons seemed just slightly smaller but didn't think much of it at first.

So what i did to fix it and return everything back to normal was just resize my icons, hold down ctrl and scroll up on the scroll wheel.

I don't know how much of a fix it is, but it's completely gotten rid of the gap for me. Hopefully it pleases you as well.

Also as a side note, I sometimes have anywhere between 5-50 icons on my desktop, I agree, clutter/organization is not the issue here.