If you’re like most people, you probably have desktop icons all over your desktop. They may be in the form of folders or icons on the taskbar, but they’re there. And if they’re not in place, they can easily get lost or forgotten. To keep your desktop icons in place on Windows 11, you can use one of two methods: either add them to the Desktop Icons folder or add them to the Start Menu. Adding Desktop Icons to the Desktop Icons Folder To add desktop icons to the Desktop Icons folder, open a command prompt and type “netstat -a”. This will show you all of your network connections and their status. If there are any desktop icons associated with any of those connections, it will show up in this list. You’ll need to select one of those connections and click on its icon to add it to the Desktop Icons folder. Once added, it will be available in yourfolder. Adding Desktop Icons to the Start Menu To add desktop icons to the Start Menu, open a command prompt and type “netstat -a”. This will show you all of your network connections and their status. If there are any desktop icons associated with any of those connections, it will show up in this list. You’ll need to select one of those connections and click on its icon to add it to the Start Menu. Once added, it will be available in yourfolder.
Lock Desktop Icons in Place
First, right-click anywhere on your desktop. A context menu will appear. Hover your cursor over the “View” option at the top of the menu.
A sub-menu will appear, displaying several different icon view options. On this menu is an option called “Auto Arrange Icons.” As the name implies, this feature allows Windows to automatically arrange your icons. To prevent this from happening, uncheck the “Auto Arrange Icons” option.
You can also check “Align Icons to Grid” if you want each row and column of icons to be aligned.
Other Possible Causes to Note
This should prevent Windows from randomly rearranging your desktop icons for the most part. However, there are some other cases in which your desktop icons may be rearranged even if you disabled the Auto Arrange Icons setting. For example, if you change your screen resolution, your icons may sometimes get scattered.
Unfortunately, there’s no built-in way to prevent that from happening except for not changing the screen resolution. It’s better to stick with your native resolution anyway. If Windows is sporadically changing the resolution without you taking any action, it could be because of an outdated driver. In this case, you may want to update your driver to see if that fixes the issue.
There are, of course, many third-party applications that claim to handle the task of locking your desktop icons in place—many of these apps being freeware, which often contain bloatware or other unwanted viruses. Be sure to thoroughly vet the developers of these apps before downloading anything.
RELATED: How to Remove Viruses and Malware on Your Windows PC
