Windows 10 Desktop Icons refreshing

Original Title: Windows 10 Desktop Icons

My desktop icons will not stay where I post them. Sometimes they’re all aligned on the left side. I suspect Windows 10 updates are doing this, but how do I fix them in place? Previous versions of Windows had a feature to lock the icons, but it doesn’t appear to be available in Windows 10.

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Communities.

I will be glad to help you with the issue you have with the computer. I understand the frustration when things don’t work the way it should.

Random refreshing of the desktop icons is usually caused by a full or corrupted icon cache.

The solution is to delete the Iconcache.db file, which will cause Windows to rebuild the file. The Iconcache.db file is located here:

By default system files are hidden, so if you haven’t already, you need to go Control Panel | Folder Options and on the View tab under Hidden files, folders, or drives set the radio button next to «Show hidden files, folders, and drives».

Save all current work and close all desktop applications before performing the following steps.

1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the path shown above. Make Explorer full screen to cover all the desktop icons to make sure Windows doesn’t access the icon cache to redraw the screen.

2. If you prefer, rename the Iconcache.db file to old_Iconcache.db file. You can always delete old_Iconcache.db after the new Iconcache.db file is created.

3. Windows keeps an active copy of Iconcache.db in RAM. So without closing or resizing Windows Explorer, select Start | Shut down. This will cause the icon cache in RAM to be lost.

Upon restarting, Windows will rebuild the Iconcache.db file. You should find that your desktop icons no longer randomly refresh and that your computer performs much better.

Hope this information is helpful. Please post in case you have any further issues, we are happy to help you further.

Windows 10 Desktop Icons refreshing

Original Title: Windows 10 Desktop Icons

My desktop icons will not stay where I post them. Sometimes they’re all aligned on the left side. I suspect Windows 10 updates are doing this, but how do I fix them in place? Previous versions of Windows had a feature to lock the icons, but it doesn’t appear to be available in Windows 10.

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Communities.

I will be glad to help you with the issue you have with the computer. I understand the frustration when things don’t work the way it should.

Random refreshing of the desktop icons is usually caused by a full or corrupted icon cache.

The solution is to delete the Iconcache.db file, which will cause Windows to rebuild the file. The Iconcache.db file is located here:

By default system files are hidden, so if you haven’t already, you need to go Control Panel | Folder Options and on the View tab under Hidden files, folders, or drives set the radio button next to «Show hidden files, folders, and drives».

Save all current work and close all desktop applications before performing the following steps.

1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the path shown above. Make Explorer full screen to cover all the desktop icons to make sure Windows doesn’t access the icon cache to redraw the screen.

2. If you prefer, rename the Iconcache.db file to old_Iconcache.db file. You can always delete old_Iconcache.db after the new Iconcache.db file is created.

3. Windows keeps an active copy of Iconcache.db in RAM. So without closing or resizing Windows Explorer, select Start | Shut down. This will cause the icon cache in RAM to be lost.

Upon restarting, Windows will rebuild the Iconcache.db file. You should find that your desktop icons no longer randomly refresh and that your computer performs much better.

Hope this information is helpful. Please post in case you have any further issues, we are happy to help you further.