Desktop icons moving around after ext moni - madness

1. MBP
2. SL
3. use MBP at a cafe
4. come back to home office - connect Dell 2407 via DVI connector
5. use MBP - notice icons "scale" in placement to much larger screen
6. next day
7. MBP fired up with no external monitor connection - icons are not where I left them, now a mixed up bunch ( a mess really )
Isnt there a way to lock these icons down so that CANT move regardless if any ext monitor is connected ? Shouldnt the OS be able to deal with this without issue ?

Don't know what variant of the MBP you have, but on my Late 2007 MacBook Pro 3,1 15", the F7 key toggles between spanning and mirrored mode. The internal may be mirroring the settings from the external.
Toggling between video modes with the keyboard has helped some people who had this issue. Again, not knowing your exact model I can't be sure which key toggles video mode but, if you have that function, it's a cheap and easy check.
Does the external monitor require a video adapter? Are you leaving the adapter attached the MBP when off the external display? If so, try removing the adapter.

Similar Messages

Desktop icons are rearranged after booting

Sometimes - I cannot make up the reason - my desktop icons are rearranged after booting in alphabetical order,
and also the icon-arrangement in some of the folders placed on the desktop is rearranged !!!
I'm used to arrange my icons in my way, and it's terrible, if the icon order is ****** up !!!
What's wrong? What can I do?

juleb wrote:
Thanks.
It looks like, that there is no solution yet for this problem !!!
As far as I see, there' no thread that offers a solution.
I there a way to knock at Apple's door to see, if they are at least aware of this problem ???
To some degree the problem with the desktop icons has been going on, well, forever! There were even problems back in OS9 days trying to arrange the desktop the way you personally wanted them. To solve that problem then the utility DIM (Desktop Icon Manager) was born. And believe it or not, the OSX descendent of DIM still exists today! See this link. Yes, DIM still exists because the problem still exists.
Interestingly enough I don't have the problem with my desktop so I don't use DIM. I initially did install it before I discovered my desktop icons were staying put without it. Everywhere else is another story. Don't get me started on that (d@mn View Options hierarchical effect).
Speaking of View Option, one thing to check is to see if your View Options for the desktop are snap to grid or None. I use snap to grid.

Desktop icons moving and growing in size

We just purchased a MacBook Pro 15", 2.8GHz. I transferred all my files from my old MacBook via FireWire. Everything seems to work fine. The only problem I have is that my desktop items keep moving after I organize them the way I want them. And they also growing in size each time. I have only about 8 icons on my desktop and they take up almost the whole screen. Any suggestions to keep them from omving around? Thank you very much!

FGI_Webmaster: Close or minimize any open windows on your desktop so the desktop is exposed. Click once on it to make the Finder the active application. Place the tips of your thumb and forefinger on the middle of the trackpad and slowly move them closer together, then farther apart. See what happens to your desktop icons? This "pinch to zoom" trackpad gesture is probably responsible for the oversized icons on your desktop. I suspect you've been doing it accidentally without noticing. Getting used to the trackpad and avoiding having two fingers in contact with it when you don't mean to is the solution.

Problem with desktop icon moving

Whenever I restart my computer, the "Macintosh HD" icon moves to become the bottom icon out of my list of icons, leaving the top right space empty where it usually should be. This has been happening for about a week after having my computer for three months.
Any idea why this is happening?
thanks.

Welcome To Discussions aburi!
Positioning Desktop icons, too close to the edge of the screen, will cause them to reposition themselves on restart.
Positioning them too close to each other, will cause this as well.
Depending on how many you have displayed, and the size of your screen, the Size of the icons, as well as the Text size & Label position can also factor in. Experiment with these settings.
My Desktop icons do not reposition themselves, and this is how I have my Desktop View Options set.
Icon size: 32 x 32
Text size: 12 pt
Label position: Bottom
I have none of the following options selected.
Snap to grid
Show item info
Show icon preview
Keep arranged by
A different configuration may work for you. Experiment with the options until you find something suitable.
Click on an open area of your Desktop.
From the Finder's Toolbar, position your cursor over "View" and pull down to "Show View Options", and click. Or use the Command + J keys.
ali b

Desktop Icons Change Positions After Restart

Hi,
After I inadvertently synced my computer with another Mac computer my icons change position after restart. I was trying to sync another computer to mine.
I have tried the usual suggestions of taking out com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.desktop.plist and letting the system create these new files but the problem still persists. I also checked the Finder > View > Show View Options and arrange by none is still selected.
Does anyone have a suggestion how I can fix this problem? Will I have to go back in time with Time Machine and restore my entire system to solve this?
I can't operate with the desktop icons changing positions like this.
Thanks,
Pacecom

Delete the hidden .DS_Store file associated with your Desktop folder. Launch the Terminal.app (in /Applications/Utilities/), copy & paste the following command into the window that pops up, hit the return key, quit the Terminal.app, OPTION-click and hold the Dock's Finder icon, and select Relaunch:
*rm ~/Desktop/".DS_Store"*
Now, set the Desktop as desired, log out and back in, and the Desktop should be as it was as you last set it.

Desktop Icons moved to right side of screen and are stuck! Help please.

Can anyone please help me? My desktop icons have moved to the right side of my screen and I cannot move them. I have tried 'View Options', right clicking the desktop, 'Finder Preferences' and even a couple of terminal commands suggested in different forums. Nothing helps. In addition, I can't drag to desktop anymore. Anyone? Please. This has consumed me for almost a week now. Thanks.

rightclick on the desktop, click "show view options", choose any thing else as "snap to grid" in the "show icon preview" field.

Desktop icons moving

Every now & then I notice they are in a new location on the desktop!! Also when I save something to the DT they either can't be seen or take a long time to appear. If I open a DT window I see them listed but I can't see them on the DT itself. Any ideas?

FGI_Webmaster: Close or minimize any open windows on your desktop so the desktop is exposed. Click once on it to make the Finder the active application. Place the tips of your thumb and forefinger on the middle of the trackpad and slowly move them closer together, then farther apart. See what happens to your desktop icons? This "pinch to zoom" trackpad gesture is probably responsible for the oversized icons on your desktop. I suspect you've been doing it accidentally without noticing. Getting used to the trackpad and avoiding having two fingers in contact with it when you don't mean to is the solution.

Stop iTunes desktop icon from appearing after update

Any way to configure this behaviour?
I like an uncluttered desktop and have the shortcuts where I like them to be. On every update however, the iTunes desktop icon appears on my desktop, and it's one of those little things that is really annoying.
Thanks,

Hi
This icon is created as part of the installer, as Wally said, there is no way to stop this.
It's not too difficult to delete the icon anyway
Taylor

Desktop Icons Moved with cmd + Option + esc

We are hooked on Zuma (the game).
Sometimes, to get out of Zuma (full screen) quickly, we use the <cmd><opt><esc> combination, then press <esc>.
This often really messes up the icons on our desktops (moves them all to the top left quadrant, with no grid or other obvious alignment. Result is hap hazard and usually includes many overlaps.)
Another <cmd><opt><esc> and a forced "relaunch" of finder moves MOST of the icons back to where they were. The ones that aren't moved back ARE moved -- just not back to the original locations. The last time this happened, I had 8 or 9 icons on top of each other in the top-most, right-most icon location.
This is a new situation since upgrading to Leopard, and happens in both of our login accounts on the iMac.
Thanks

I experience the same reordering of my desktop when I plug in a USB thumb drive or insert a DVD. I normally keep files and folder in little clusters on the desktop, so having them moved is a bit annoying. I guess this is just one of those crazy things?

Desktop icons moving on restart

I'm a recent (late, I know!) upgrade to Tiger on my G4 iBook. I've noticed a couple times recently that after restarting, some of my icons on my desktop are in a different place from where they were before restarting. One time, several of them ended up on the left side of the desktop when they were on the right before. Today, my HD was in the bottom right corner upon startup (as opposed to the usual upper right).
This isn't a huge problem, just a bit of annoyance in that I have to move the icons back. Any idea what's causing this and how to fix it?

I have read a number of posts complaining about this, and it has happened to me once or twice. It sure seems like a bug. I expect it will get fixed eventually. For now you can try this, which may or may not help,
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15779186#15779186
And you can leave feedback:
Apple - Mac OS X - Feedback
charlie

Desktop icon arrangement moves after restart

I have folders on my desktop arranged in the way that I prefer. Every 3rd or 4th restart or shut down/start up my icons all rorder themselves and go to the right hand side of my display in 2 vertical rows (in random order).
I getting really tired of moving everything back to the arrangement I like. This never happened in SL. Most of the time I untick the "Reopen windows when logging back in" and I know I have the prolblem then. I'm honestly not sure if leaving the "Reopen" box selected would cure the problem. I don't think so but I be aware of it and see.
I've attached a screenshot of the arrangement I want to keep. Any thoughts on what's causing this and what I can do to correct it.

We're having th same problem! Would love to know how to fix this bug?

How do i get the textbox to stop moving around after first click

I can't figure out how to get the textbox to stop moving after i set the textbox location with the first click. help please?
protected function txtloc_BTN_clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void
                addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,newTxt);
            public function newTxt(event:Event):void
                addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,newTxt2);
            } //end newtxt
            public function newTxt2(event:Event):void
                x1 = mouseX;
                y1 = mouseY;
                usrtxtlabel.visible;
                usrtxtlabel.x = x1;
                usrtxtlabel.y = y1;
                usrtxtlabel.x;
                usrtxtlabel.y;
                //usrtxt.focusRect = true;
                removeEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, txtloc_BTN_clickHandler); //does not work
            public function removeHandler(event:Event):void
        ]]>
    </fx:Script>
    <s:TextInput x="39" y="252" width="142" height="30" id="txtinput" fontFamily="Times New Roman"/>
    <s:Label x="59" y="67" width="104" height="32" text="{txtinput.text}" id="usrtxtlabel"/>
<s:Button x="394" y="252" label="txt location" id="txtloc_BTN" click="txtloc_BTN_clickHandler(event)"/>

remove both listeners.

Code being moved around after editing in Design View

Hello all,
Call me a neat freak, a OCD guy, whatever, I don't care. I
primarily work in code view and when I do, I like to have my tags
in a nice, neat, order.
It didn't do this in DW8 but it does this in DW CS3, but I've
noticed that ANY time I make any sort of a quick change in Design
View, it moves the tags around a little bit. Not by a lot, usually
only a few spaces to the left or the right, but it screws up my tab
spaces and it's driving me crazy!!!!
I'm sure it's something simple, some checkbox I need ot
check, but how do I fix this, if I can fix it at all?

Hello all,
Call me a neat freak, a OCD guy, whatever, I don't care. I
primarily work in code view and when I do, I like to have my tags
in a nice, neat, order.
It didn't do this in DW8 but it does this in DW CS3, but I've
noticed that ANY time I make any sort of a quick change in Design
View, it moves the tags around a little bit. Not by a lot, usually
only a few spaces to the left or the right, but it screws up my tab
spaces and it's driving me crazy!!!!
I'm sure it's something simple, some checkbox I need ot
check, but how do I fix this, if I can fix it at all?

Desktop Icons are blank after upgrade

Has anyone else noticed that in lion your alias links sometimes show as clear squares? Mine has almost daily. If you click on them and move them the blue folder is back.. Its bother some but not an issue. If you have seen this can it be fixed?
MBP15-Early 2011.

Same thing happening here on my mid-2010 MacBook Pro 15. I don't recall this being a problem at all in Snow Leopard. Hope the 10.7.2 update fixes the problem.

How do I stop desktop icons from moving around - Windows 7 Professional 64 bit?

This just started occuring 7/8/12. Recently added UPromise turbo saver to my Internet Explorer. Also did a Java update. Can't really remember if they were done before or after problem began. Now, all my desktop icons flip around and will not lock into where I place them. How can I stop this.

Hi there makeyesup!:Well you have 2 choices; go to Control Panel then look for System Recovery then follow what you see on your monitor if you see a calendar, that is System Restore select the latest date that you can remember your icons acting normally then restart anew & wait until the program straightens it out it should be as good as new
2. right click your rodent & look for anything that says Arrainge icons... hit auto or whatever gets them normal
3. restart PC then before the desktop shows up press the F8 key the look for & select "Last good configuration that worked" then restart
good luck
hope this helps
spacechild

Desktop icons moving around after ext moni - madness

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for