Windows XP Pro SP2 w/all updates.

Newbie to the forum here, but not a computing newbie. I've spent several days researching this problem, including searching this forum. The problem isn't uncommon, but I have not found any solution, just workarounds which I already have.

Background: did a clean uninstall of my ATI video driver and re-installed the same version. I had just been installing newer verions over older ones and wanted to tidy things up. The existing version and the one I re-installed were the same and did/do work well.

On re-boot, all of my desktop icons were gathered over to the left side which didn't surprise me as I had gone through some resolution changes re-installing the video driver. Cleaned up the driver installation and settings, then re-arranged the icons the way I wanted. Auto Arrange is OFF, Align to Grid and Show Desktop Icons are ON. Save on shutdown is ON [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoSaveSettings"=dword:00000000.

Re-booted and all of the desktop icons are again clustered on the left side. Did a little more digging and ran Kelly's Kelly's Korner tweak on saving user setting on WinXP shutdown. No joy.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoSaveSettings"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run]
"SystemTray"="SysTray.Exe"

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell NoRoam\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell NoRoam\Bags]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell ]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:00001f40

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell NoRoam]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:00001f40

Re-booted and no joy.


Dug deeper and found that this Registry key for my user account contained no string values:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell \Bags\1\Desktop]

"ItemPos1280x1024(1)" shows no values on the problem User account, and actually doesn't exist as a string value. It exists and contains lots of hex values on a healthy system, or even another healthy user account on the same system.

Something is wrong with saving to "ItemPos1280x1024(1)" on exit for this one User account. No other User account is effected. I manually created the string value, but it disappears on re-boot. Something is deleting it instead of creating it and it's data on icon positions.

Any registry settings that anyone knows of to trigger the saving of "ItemPos1280x1024(1)" icon positions? I already have a little utility that allows me to restore the icon positions from another storage site as a workaround, but I'm expecting Windows XP Pro to do that automatically on re-boot/shutdown.

Thanks for any replies!

OK, I got it fixed. I did two things:

1) I ran sfc /purgecache, sfc /cachesize=100, and sfc /scanonce, after pointing it to where it looks for Windows files on my optical drive containing WinXP Pro SP2 (I normally delete files in my dllcache folder to save disk space).

2) I imported the "ItemPos1280x1024(1)"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,........... string value from a working User account into HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\1\Desktop of the problem User account and then hit F5 and the icons stayed in position!!!! I had previously tried manually creating "ItemPos1280x1024(1)" string value, but it just disappeared on re-boot. This time I just ran an exported .reg file from a working User account for the Desktop key. I compared all values before and after and there are no other changes except for "ItemPos1280x1024(1)". The other difference was I presed F5 before re-booting. I became hopeful when the icons stayed in position after F5, and I believe it updated the "ItemPos1280x1024(1)" hex values to my current User layout.

I'm not sure which did the trick, but I'm leaning towards the sfc /scanonce.

Anyway, I think my week long "quest" has ended. Thanks for the replies!