Appearance tab

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I like the Classic view for my Windows XP Pro. I like to set the screen resolution to 1280 x 1024 so I have to do a lot of tweaking with the appearance tab under the desktop properties. When I change the size of the icons or sometimes other subtle changes my desktop icons rearrange themselves to the left side of the desktop. The only thing checked under

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About your icons jumping over to the left, I can only venture a guess. I have that happen when a few poorly written games that my kids *love* don’t redraw the desktop properly after changing resolutions. Like you I have the high-res desktop and the classic look (well, sorta, if you ignore WindowBlinds. You might try updating your video driver if you haven’t already. It could be the source of this and your next problem.

The color reverting I also don’t have a hard and fast answer for. If you hit F5, does it refresh things the way they should be? It seems that you can no longer disable the Active Desktop, which was an option until XP arrived. It’s probably buried in the registry somewhere, but I confess I have not dug deeply enough to find out yet. It’s an interesting question that I will investigate.

AFAIK you can’t do a thing about the cutesy fade to black and white. Annoying, surely, but the is the OS for them asses…..er, I mean, the masses, per Microsoft’s decree. Presumably that too can be avoided via the registry or some such but I haven’t seen anything on the web regarding it – yet.

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Mark,

I never play games on my computers. I don’t even have any installed so that can’t be the reason for the icons jumping. F5 doesn’t help when the screen reverts to its original color.

My video adaptor is a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400. It is supposed to be XP compatible. When I go to the Windows update site it doesn’t indicate that I need updated video drivers. Do you think I should try updating it anyway?

Thanks,

hlewton

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I would certainly try newer drivers. The latest on NVidia’s site are the 23.11’s and I personally have had a few problems with them. I’m not alone – there have been other reports of problems on the net with this release.

See if you can locate the NVidia driver release 21.83 – these are WHQL certified, digitally signed – and rock solid. The drivers that come stock with XP don’t unleash all the potential and speed of your video card. If you have a card manufactured by Hercules, Dell, or another company, look for their specific driver releases instead of the Nvidia “reference” versions first.

If you can’t find the 21.83 drivers, let me know and I will post them for you to download at my personal site. They are not available on the NVidia corporate site any longer.

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Mark,

Are you sure you mean NVidia driver release 21.83. I was not able to find the driver itself but in my search for it I came up with this site http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail.php3?fid=957127915 and they have nothing good to say about that release. Sorry, didn’t know how to make a hyperlink out of the previous address.

Thanks

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I looked at that board and it’s amusing – you could replace that with the 23.11s on some of the boards I have seen.

What I recommended was based on personal experience. The 21.83 drivers are certified by Microsoft and are digitally signed, which means they went through a more intensive process than the current ones. Regardless of that I have many problems where the 23.11 drivers do NOT repaint the screen correctly, which was also a problem with the stock XP drivers when I first used them. I have also had a blue screen or two when an application uses DirectDraw although I can’t replicate the problem.

Since you have System Restore, create a checkpoint before you install the drivers, whichever you choose – and remember that even without it you have an option in XP to roll back the driver to the previous version. Both of these features work. Use them. And definitely try the drivers on for size. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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Sorry, didn’t know how to make a hyperlink out of the previous address

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Don’t worry about it… So that you know, the 1-click TagPanel on each post will show you how to do this. It’s extremely similar HTML code, if you know that at all….Link Text, but replace the with [ ].

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Mark,

I checked my driver version it is 5.1.2001.0 by Microsoft XP. I believe you said that was a poor driver also. I’m not afraid to try and install a different driver but I have had no luck in finding the driver you said to search for. If could post it, I will give it a try.

Thanks,

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I’ll upload it this evening for you, and post the link here.

For the record, the driver that comes with XP isn’t really poor – but it’s also very plain-vanilla and doesn’t enable hardware acceleration amongst a few other things. Its primary purpose is to provide stability and compatibility, and it’s not optimized as the new ones are. Once you get the new driver installed, let me know what your experiences with it are.

Cheers,

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Icons rearranging themselves when changing resolutions is a problem that has plagued all versions of Windows. I know of no way to stop it, but you can get WinTidy (Mercury Freeware #31) which allows you to Save and Restore any desktop icon arrangements. It sits in the systray, and if you add new icons but forget to save, it will remind you.

Click My Sig

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Thank you. I have never before experienced icons rearranging themselves in Win 95b or Win 98SE so it appeared to be a new problem to me. The only times I saw it happen in the 2 previous versions mentioned is when I had to boot to the safe mode. Then all bets were off.

Again, thanks.

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MerCurmudgeon,

I loaded it and it appears to be a very handy tool.

Thanks.

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Mark,

Thanks, I’ll most definitely let you know the results as soon as I know them.

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Hi,
I’ve just entered the NVidia site and discovered the . You have to click in Drivers Archive.
Regards

Edited by WyllyWylly to create a link to the driver and the archive

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Thanks Ricardo, they had it hidden pretty well….out there in plain sight on the left-hand side. But at least now we all know where to find it, straight from the people who created it!

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Hi,

Thank you for your help.

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Mark,

Have I missed the link or haven’t you gotten around to posting it yet?

Thanks.

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Have I missed the link or haven’t you gotten around to posting it yet?

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ummmm…errrm…..I am terribly sorry it took me so doggone long. You’ve missed nothing, but you have stumbled across what happens when I don’t put something down in my planner, or do it right away.

They are up there now….and here is the link for you:

http://www.broge.com/download/nvidia/2183/winxp_21.83.exe

FYI, these are for both Windows 2000 and XP.

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Mark,

Thanks, I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out if they helped.

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Mark,

I have been using the video driver you up loaded since 3JAN02 and I have had no problems that I can identify.

Thanks for the help.

hlewton

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That is great news – does this mean that the icons have stopped organizing themselves according to the allignment of the planets and the phase of the moon?

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Mark,

I think it means that but I also loaded that program called Win Tidy and found out it works great also. I did go to the appearance tab and try to get the icons and the screen color to screw up but they seemed to remain stable. The only thing I can contribute that to is the video driver you gave me.

Again thanks.

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Mark,

Nvidia Display Driver Versiuon 2.3.1.2. Do you think I should install this video driver update that Windows XP update site recommends?

Thanks,

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