Desktop icons won't move to second monitor

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Level 1

103 points

Desktop icons won't move to second monitor

Happens peridocally. I keep my application bar on my second monitor, to the right of my main one. I also keep a lot of desktop folders and files on that desktop. Once and a while, I wake the machine up from sleep, with both monitors active and working, only to find that all the icons on the second monitor have disappeared from it and realigned themselve to the right edge of my main monitor. The application bar remains on the second. The icons will not move back.

Any idea why this is happening? I think the only way to fix it is a restart unless someone knows a better way.

2.66 quad core

Posted on Mar 2, 2012 12:02 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

X423424X

Level 6

14,271 points

Mar 2, 2012 12:24 PM in response to Kurt Triffet

Did you check your Displays preferences, Arrangement? That is where you define the relationship of the two screens and the main monitor (defined by which monitor you dragged the litte white menu bar to).

At the moment it is not clear to me why sleep would make your system forget the arraignment setting. One way it can happen though is if a monitor disconnects (or the system thinks it disconnects). You can reproduce te effect yourself by unplugging one of the monitor's video connections while both are on.

You said one of the monitors had disappeared so a disconnect may be indeed what is happening. Perhaps that monitor is slowly failing (power supply, whatever). Try running with just the problem one for a while to see what happens.

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Answer 2

Kurt Triffet Author

Level 1

103 points

Mar 2, 2012 1:10 PM in response to X423424X

Both monitors are fine. Both sleep together and come back on together. This is only a periodic problem.

Display arrangement is set correctly and arrangement settings do not change when this anomoly happens. The icons move over, but the app bar stays put. If I disconnect the second monitor, the app bar as well as icons will go to the primary monitor.

Interesting enough, after playing with destop cleanup (did nothing except arrange icons nicely on the primary monitor) and going about normal work for about a half hour, I was able to drag the icons back over to the second monitor.

As a side note, when I did desktop cleanup to the newly moved back icons on the secondary, half of them flew back to the primary, but they could be moved.

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