Moving icons makes them disappear

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Sometimes when I move an icon on my desktop, it disappears. But when I refresh the desktop, the icon returns.

This doesn’t sound “normal.” Is it?

Regards,
Chuck Billow

Chuck Billow

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Definitely not normal. I suspect your video card is overloaded. I suggest you lower your video resolution and see if that makes a difference.

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Viruses and spyware could affect how your desktop icons act. Make sure you’ve run full scans with your anti-malware tools to rule out those possibilities. As a secondary scan I like to use a free product called Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware from Malwarebytes.org ( http://www.malwarebytes.org/ ).

You could also have a corrupt “explorer.exe” file. From the desktop, open the Task Manager (either Ctrl+Alt+Del or right-click an empty portion of the Task Bar > Start Task Manager.) In the resulting Task Manager dialog box, open the Process tab and look for “explorer.exe” (not to be confused with the “iexplore.exe” file.) Click explorer.exe to highlight it and then click the End Process button. Everything on your desktop will disappear.

Now you’ll have to re-install a fresh copy of the “explorer.exe” file. Open Task Manager, click on File in the menu bar (upper left corner) and click New Task. Type in “explorer.exe” (WITHOUT the quotes) and click OK. Depending on how fast your computer is you’ll have your icons and task bar back within seconds.

Other corrupt files caused by some 3rd party software overwriting system files could also affect your icons. There’s another Windows tool called System File Checker. Running this utility checks all of your system files but you will need a genuine copy of your install disk or a complete i386 file on your hard drive from which the SFC can extract fresh copies. To do this use the Run command and type in: sfc /scannow (note the space between sfc and /scannow.) This command will initiate the Windows File Protection service to scan all protected files and verify their integrity, replacing any problem files.

I hope this helps or someone more knowledgeable responds.

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Viruses and spyware could affect how your desktop icons act. Make sure you’ve run full scans with your anti-malware tools to rule out those possibilities. As a secondary scan I like to use a free product called Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware from Malwarebytes.org ( http://www.malwarebytes.org/ ).

You could also have a corrupt “explorer.exe” file. From the desktop, open the Task Manager (either Ctrl+Alt+Del or right-click an empty portion of the Task Bar > Start Task Manager.) In the resulting Task Manager dialog box, open the Process tab and look for “explorer.exe” (not to be confused with the “iexplore.exe” file.) Click explorer.exe to highlight it and then click the End Process button. Everything on your desktop will disappear.

Now you’ll have to re-install a fresh copy of the “explorer.exe” file. Open Task Manager, click on File in the menu bar (upper left corner) and click New Task. Type in “explorer.exe” (WITHOUT the quotes) and click OK. Depending on how fast your computer is you’ll have your icons and task bar back within seconds.

Other corrupt files caused by some 3rd party software overwriting system files could also affect your icons. There’s another Windows tool called System File Checker. Running this utility checks all of your system files but you will need a genuine copy of your install disk or a complete i386 file on your hard drive from which the SFC can extract fresh copies. To do this use the Run command and type in: sfc /scannow (note the space between sfc and /scannow.) This command will initiate the Windows File Protection service to scan all protected files and verify their integrity, replacing any problem files.

I hope this helps or someone more knowledgeable responds.

Thanks. I’ll give it a look.

Chuck

Chuck Billow

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Viruses and spyware could affect how your desktop icons act. Make sure you’ve run full scans with your anti-malware tools to rule out those possibilities. As a secondary scan I like to use a free product called Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware from Malwarebytes.org ( http://www.malwarebytes.org/ ).

You could also have a corrupt “explorer.exe” file. From the desktop, open the Task Manager (either Ctrl+Alt+Del or right-click an empty portion of the Task Bar > Start Task Manager.) In the resulting Task Manager dialog box, open the Process tab and look for “explorer.exe” (not to be confused with the “iexplore.exe” file.) Click explorer.exe to highlight it and then click the End Process button. Everything on your desktop will disappear.

Now you’ll have to re-install a fresh copy of the “explorer.exe” file. Open Task Manager, click on File in the menu bar (upper left corner) and click New Task. Type in “explorer.exe” (WITHOUT the quotes) and click OK. Depending on how fast your computer is you’ll have your icons and task bar back within seconds.

Other corrupt files caused by some 3rd party software overwriting system files could also affect your icons. There’s another Windows tool called System File Checker. Running this utility checks all of your system files but you will need a genuine copy of your install disk or a complete i386 file on your hard drive from which the SFC can extract fresh copies. To do this use the Run command and type in: sfc /scannow (note the space between sfc and /scannow.) This command will initiate the Windows File Protection service to scan all protected files and verify their integrity, replacing any problem files.

I hope this helps or someone more knowledgeable responds.

If you do try the excellent advice above, make sure you use the i386 folder from the same service pack that is currently installed on the machine.

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Sounds normal to me on your machines, what have you been tweaking now?

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Sounds normal to me on your machines, what have you been tweaking now?

For those of you who don’t know our regular loungers, Chuck has a habit of tweaking things, forgetting what he changed, and then discovering unintended consequences.

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For those of you who don’t know our regular loungers, Chuck has a habit of tweaking things, forgetting what he changed, and then discovering unintended consequences.

Now Stuart, that’s not nice. Somewhat true, perhaps, but nevertheless. I think that saying that I do too many things at once would be more accurate than just that “I forget.” Look at it like me doing you a favor by screwing around so you won’t have to!

As a matter of fact, the first time I saw this was immediately after I installed Win-7 (RTM). I ignored it then. Now it’s fairly regular: I move an icon, it disappears, I refresh the desktop and it comes back.

Regards,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

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Sounds normal to me on your machines, what have you been tweaking now?

Dave, as I noted fro Stuart, this was no tweak. It happened too early after a clean install — nothing but the Win-7 and the hardware drivers — and too often. Not *all* the time, but more than once or twice.

It seems strange that my video card would “overload.” It’s a nVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS (G86). I’m not too knowledgeable about hardware, but shouldn’t that be enough?

Well, it ain’t the end of the world, since it comes back with a refresh…just seems strange is all.

Regards,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

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It is worth checking to see if there is an updated driver for your video card.

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