Windows 10: Desktop Icons stuck on monitor 2

I had a problem where the icons on my desktop were stuck on monitor 2 and eventually I worked out why and how to solve it.


I have two monitors. one being my laptop screen and the other a larger separate screen, both running on different resolutions.


I was playing around, swopping the default screen and using the "extend displays", "duplicate displays", and "show only on 1 display", options. I was also fiddling with the icon size. I was doing that through "Display settings" right click on the home screen to select the option


Basically when I swopped the default screen from the laptop to the larger screen the desktop items all moved to the top left hand corner on the larger screen at exactly the same icon size and screen size as on the smaller screen. I am going to call that the "replicated laptop zone".


I then started to play around. I made the larger screen my default screen and increased the size of the icons to try and fill the screen. I then moved the icons around. I had just loaded the new MS Edge programme and seemed to have several spare Edge icons floating around so I was testing them out. I remember a couple of icons just disappearing and I put it down to a glitch with the new Edge programme creating ghost icons which disappeared when you moved them.


What I hadn't realised was that two icons had dropped down onto the laptop screen. I can only guess that happens when you move them out of the "replicated laptop zone" on the larger screen.


I then changed the icon size back to small on the large screen and then found that all of the icons on the larger screen wouldn't go back to the small screen when I changed the default screen back to the laptop.


Eventually I saw the two stray icons on the laptop screen and tried moving them back to the larger screen. It wouldn't allow me to do that. Finally I worked out that the icons were a different size. I resized the two stray icons to "small" and Hey Presto, I could move them to the large screen. As soon as I moved them to the larger screen all of the icons jumped back to the smaller screen because I had already changed the "make this my main display" back to the laptop by ticking the check box in "display settings"


The conclusion is that the desktop items have to be the same size on both screens to move between the two screens and that a mix of sizes will stop the desktop icons from moving and operating correctly. All very obvious with the benefit of hindsight but frustrating when you are trying to work it out.

:)

 

Desktop icons moving to monitor 2

Hi Ruth,

Thanks for the suggestion but I'm afraid I already had the desktop set up with "Auto arrange icons" unchecked and "Align icons to grid" checked; I have had it set like that for months.

To expand on the issue, the desktop windows I leave open also rearrange themselves into an area that represents a smaller desktop than that which is configured. Again, this is possibly because when waking up, the smaller monitor 2 desktop seems to come
alive first so all the windows appear there before being moved back when monitor 1 wakes up, at which point all windows (even the monitor 2 ones) are moved onto monitor 1. I've never worried too much about the windows because I have a third-party program
that will move them all back, but not the icons, sadly.

Regards,

Jim.

 

Trouble with 2 monitors

Hi Tim,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

I suggest you to change the settings to Extended Monitor and check if it helps.

Please follow below steps:

• Right Click any ware of the Desktop, and launch Personalization.
• Go to dual monitor settings under personalization, and change it Extended Monitor.

Please get back to us for future support, we’ll be glad to assist you further.



Thank you.

 

Desktop icons moving to monitor 2

I have two monitors on my Windows 10 PC - monitor 1 (on the right) is a 32" set to 1920x1080 resolution and a monitor 2 (on the left) is a 17" set to 1280x1024 resolution. I have extended the desktop over both monitors with the right-hand one (monitor 1)
being the main monitor that has the desktop icons on it, stacked vertically along the left-hand edge of the desktop. This all works beautifully except that after waking my PC from sleep mode, my icons always move to part-way across monitor 2 (about 2 thirds
from the left) and I have to move them back manually.

I've tried every sort of configuration I can think of to prevent this but nothing works. This aggravates me in the extreme as I always have windows open covering every inch of my extended desktop apart from the bit where the icons normally reside so I have
to keep minimising things so I can move them back, otherwise I can't get to them in a hurry (if a customer calls with an emergency).

I'm thinking that maybe on waking, the PC sees monitor 2 before monitor 1 and gets confused as to which is the primary monitor but if that really were the case, I'd expect the icons to be positioned on the left of monitor 2, not just hanging around in the
middle somewhere.

Has anybody else seen this and perhaps solved it?