Problem with Taskbar and Icons

Help!
I recently have been having a problem with things moving on my desktop. My icons will jump from where I've placed them back over to the left side. I do not have "auto arrange" checked all though I do have "align to grid" checked. Also my "address bar" and "quick launch" toolbars keep getting removed from my taskbar even though I have the taskbar locked. Things will stick for awhile then next thing you know there right back to the default locations. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance!

 

Are you running any type of tweaking or cleanup utilities before shutting down or during bootup process?

Have you check the folder related settings in the bottom half of the:
Control Panel > Folder Options > View tab to see if any related ones were checked/unchecked?
"Remember eash folder's view settings" and "Restore previous folder windows at logon".

But from the sound of the taskbar related problems I think you got the XP jinx problem. This is a very annoying file cache corruption in XP which causes file system to 'forget' your settings pertaining to mainly desktop/quick launch icons and taskbar options (locking, hiding, etc.).

You can try this: make changes to your settings, meaning check boxes that were not and uncheck boxes that were, reboot and see if the changes stuck or not. If good change the settings to whatever you want and reboot to check again.

 

No I'm not running any type of optimizing or clean-up program on my system, which is by-the-way is windows XP media addition 2005 on a HP Pavilion dv5215. I tried unchecking everything that was checked and checked everthing that was unchecked. I then ran the trial version of reg seeker. All tho it found around 500 reg problems it only fixed 15. Do I need to purchase the full version (I hate to if it won't fix this problem) or maybe you know of a freeware or shareware version I can download. None the less the problem persists.

Sorry for taking so long to respond back, I've been away from home and my computer. Phew, I was having withdrawls.

 

No, RegSeeker should be free (ignore the licensing info at the main window) just run the unlicensed version, that should be adequate.
Where did you download it from? Was it this link? As long as the program and the version matches, it should be fine.

More so than the registry cleaning, I'd like you to click on the 'Tweaks' section and make sure you have the option in red box is checked, then click on 'Apply Changes'.

Afterwards, click on 'Rebuild Icon cache' which will move all icons to the left side (same as auto arrange feature) but you will be able to re-arrange them to your liking when it is done. Reboot and check to see if it helped or not.

 

According to my incomplete personal testing, I found out that after a few the registry cleanup via RegSeeker (using the experimental, more aggressive cleanup) routines within the same session, something screws the settings to be retained.

Again not sure at what point it was broken and how but it occured when cleaning up user related reg keys/values. How I know it is the problem pertains to user profile.
So if yuo backup your data then remove your user profile and re-create it.
Login as another user with admin privileges then:
Start > Run > sysdm.cpl ,3 > OK > User Profiles > Settings > select the user profile > Delete > confirm > OK all the way out, then, right click on Start button and then also remove the user folder under 'Documents and Settings' if it exists.
Reboot the machine, login as the admin account again, then go to User Management console and re-create a new user (same as previous or different):
Start > Run > lusrmgr.msc > OK > Users

The new user account will not have this problem (I quite certain of it) until you start running registry cleaners in aggressive mode.
For example: for RegSeeker 1.55 users whether you use the Autoclean or the manual mode, run at least 2-3 passes and only delete the 'green' entries, and leave the others unless you know what you are doing. Do not use the experimental option or any other option that is not selected by default.

Hope this helps.

~TL :cool