How to fix blinking shortcuts on the Windows desktop. How to fix blinking shortcuts on the desktop Windows OS Icons jump on the desktop what to do
The desktop for the user is not so much a welcome picture when loading the Windows operating system, but a useful tool at work. Thanks to it, you can instantly access the necessary files, installed programs or folders. Therefore, each user tends to customize the desktop as they wish.
Ways to Customize Desktop Icons on Windows 10
All available desktop settings on Windows 10 are conditionally divided into three large groups:
- icon size setting;
- setting the display of icons (adding or removing);
- individual personalization of each icon.
Let's briefly consider each of the distinguished groups.
Setting the icon size
The creators of Windows 10 have developed three types of icon sizes: large, regular, and small. To use this setting, right-click on the desktop, hover over the View option, and then set the desired icon scale. In addition to setting the size, the parameter sets the ordering and alignment of icons.
Use the View tab to adjust the size, order, and alignment of icons
To fine-tune the size of shortcuts, hold down the CTRL key on the desktop screen and scroll the mouse wheel up or down. This will increase the number of available sizes to 20.
Video: ways to adjust the size of icons on the desktop
Customizing the display of icons (adding or removing)
If you wish, you can hide all standard Windows system icons (computer, recycle bin, network) or, conversely, add and pin them to your desktop. To do this, use the personalization function. Right-click and go to the item of the same name.
In the "Themes" menu, click the "Customize Desktop Icons" item and customize the display of the necessary Windows system icons by checking or unchecking them. This window also changes the appearance of the icons when you press the "Change Icon" button.
The "Desktop Icon Options" window allows you to configure the display of system desktop icons
Video: ways to add system icons to the desktop
Separate personalization of each icon
Another option for customizing icons is customizing (setting the appearance) of each label separately. Moreover, customization applies to both system icons and shortcuts.
- Right-click on any icon and go to Properties.
To customize, right-click on the shortcut and find "Properties"
- Go to the "Shortcut" tab and at the bottom of the tab click on "Change Icon". You can also set up a quick launch of the program (or opening a folder) with a combination of certain keys when filling in the corresponding "Quick call" field.
Press the "Change Icon" key in the "Shortcut" tab
- In the window that appears, select the icon you like from the proposed list. You can also create a new icon yourself by specifying the path to an image with .ico resolution when using the Explorer's "Browse" function.
Choose the appropriate icon from the list
Problems with desktop icons
Errors occur on the desktop, as in other Windows system services. Most often, crashes lead to problems with the correct display of desktop icons. Consider the most common problems and how to solve them.
Flashing/flickering icons
There are three reasons for the problem:
- damaged video card drivers;
- incompatibility of programs installed on the PC;
- failure of Windows system services.
In the first case, you will need to reinstall the video card drivers. To do this, do the following:
- Next to the Start button, click on search and type Device Manager. Left-click on the control panel setting that appears.
Find Device Manager with Search
- In the manager window that opens, find the "Display adapters" category, expand it, select your video card, right-click on it and click "Update Drivers".
Update the drivers by selecting the appropriate option from the context menu
- After that, the automatic update of the video adapter drivers will begin. When finished, restart your computer.
To update the video card driver, your computer must be connected to the Internet.
In the second case, you will need to find a program that conflicts with the Windows 10 system and uninstall it as follows:
- Use the key combination WIN + R to open the command line and enter the value compmgmt.msc into it.
Open the compmgmt.msc value in the command line
- In the "Computer Management" window that appears, go to the required category at the following address: "Utilities / Event Viewer / Windows Log / System", where in the list of running programs find the information "Error". Remember the name of the application written in the "Source" field. For the convenience of identifying faulty applications, installed and running programs can be sorted by date.
Find conflicting programs in the System tab
- Open "This PC" and select the "Uninstall or change a program" option.
To remove programs, use the "Uninstall or change a program" function in the "This PC" tab
- Find the application that conflicts with the system and remove it.
Remove conflicting apps from the list
- After the uninstallation process, reboot.
In the third case, you will need to scan the Windows system for corrupted services.
Disappearance of some desktop icons
The “disappearance” of icons from the desktop happens due to problems of a critical failure in the work of “Explorer”. To troubleshoot problems in the Task Manager (combination CTRL + ALT + DELETE), find and select "Explorer", right-click on it and click "Restart" or use the "Restart" button in the lower right corner of the manager.
Restart File Explorer using the appropriate buttons in the Task Manager
Sometimes the disappearance of icons is due to the enabled Continuum function (tablet mode), which is only found in Windows 10. To disable it, go to the settings of the "System" section (Start menu - "Settings").
Locate the "System" section in Windows Settings
In the list of options that appears on the left, select "Tablet Mode" and turn off the two sliders available in the settings. The automatic switching of the device to tablet mode is also disabled in the corresponding field.
Change your Tablet Mode settings to bring app icons back to your desktop
Disappearing all shortcuts from the desktop
The reason for the problem is simple - the icon display setting is disabled on the computer. The problem is solved in two clicks: first, right-click on the desktop, then hover over "View" and check the box "Display desktop icons".
Enable the "Show desktop icons" feature in the "View" tab
Video: How to enable icon display on Windows 10
If the above method did not solve the problem, try an alternative option. Call the command line (WIN + R) and enter the following commands, separated by commas: Rundll32 shell32.dll, Controll_RunDLL desk.cpl,5. When entering, carefully observe the correct spelling of all characters and symbols. Click OK.
Enter the commands in the command prompt and click "OK"
Moving icons around the desktop
The problem is this: after restarting the computer, the location of the icons is constantly confused and the shortcuts are randomly “scattered” around the screen. To fix the problem, right-click on the desktop, select "View" and check the box next to the "Align icons to grid" option.
To eliminate icon movement, enable Align Icons to Grid in the View tab
After that, right-click on the desktop again and click "Refresh" to save the alignment settings.
Video: How to Pin Desktop Icons on Windows 10
Other problems
In addition to the above problems, there are other problems that you need to know about fixing.
Notification area missing
It happens that directly on the desktop the icons are displayed as they should, but there is no "Notification area" on the bottom taskbar (time, language layout, volume, network status, etc.).
Missing notification area on bottom taskbar
To solve this problem:
- Select "Settings" from the "Start" menu and in the window that appears, click on the "Personalization" setting.
Find the item "Taskbar" in the menu on the left and open it
- In the "Notification area" section, alternately click on the items "Select the icons displayed in the taskbar" and "Turn system icons on or off."
Enable icons for required commands
Shortcut association failure
When this type of problem occurs, launching a shortcut does not open its associated program, and the application does not respond. To restore the label association:
Can't move shortcuts
In addition to the "chaotic scattering" of icons on the desktop, you may encounter the opposite situation - the inability to move shortcuts. Whatever you do while dragging the label, it automatically returns to its original place. There are two ways to solve the problem.
Disable "Arrange icons automatically" in the "View" tab
Allow full control in the Administrators tab
Remember the main thing: to avoid all errors, problems with the desktop, update the Windows operating system in a timely manner and periodically check with antivirus programs.
The desktop is a Windows system service, which is also subject to technical failures: incorrect display of icons, malfunctions of shortcuts. However, the resulting failures do not carry serious system errors and are resolved in a few minutes.
In the latest versions Windows 10, including the Fall Creators Update (Redstone 3), there is a bug that affects the location of icons (shortcuts) on the desktop. Anyone who has come across knows that attempts to move the desired icon to the left side of the screen usually end in failure - at the moment of "landing" it instantly returns to its original place. The topic of the "anomalous zone" has been raised many times on computer forums, read below for tips on solving the problem from popular experts IT-portals Deskmodder and gHacks.
First, I will give a simple life hack from the team Deskmodder.de. They noticed that when dragging the shortcut, luck was much more likely to favor those who placed the mouse pointer on the left side of the shortcut.
One of the authors of the articles and the founder of the visited site gHacks.net Martin Brinkmann ( Martin Brinkmann) gave a detailed solution to the problem of "jumping icons" in Windows 10. Nothing complicated: you need to enable the "Align to Grid" function, known since Windows XP. To do this, right-click on an empty space on the table and select " View"("View") → further, voiced by " Align icons to grid"("Align icons to grid").
After fixing the elements of the rabstol, another "trouble" may appear - a large distance between them.
This cannot be solved through the operating system settings due to the lack of an option, but the interval is easily adjusted through the system registry. To change the spacing between desktop icons (shortcuts):
- press the logo key Windows() → in the search field enter regedit.exe → "Enter";
- open the branch in the registry editor HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics ;
- In chapter WindowMetrics parameter IconSpacing defines the horizontal spacing between icons (default value is "-1725", in Windows 8.1 / 7 the default value was "-1125", i.e. labels were closer horizontally), set its value between "-480" and "-2730";
- parameter IconVerticalSpacing defines the vertical spacing between icons (default is "-1725"), has the same minimum and maximum values as IconSpacing.
After setting the optimal distance between the elements of the desktop, restart the computer or force close and restart Explorer. I wrote about how to implement this in practice in " How to restore the location of shortcuts on the Windows 10 / 8 / 7 desktop": via key combination " Win +R"Open the Run window and type cmd → "OK" → in the console type taskkill /IMexplorer.exe /F → "Enter" (to launch Explorer, run the command in the console explorer →"Enter"). The final!
Dmitry dmitry_spb Evdokimov
The icons on the Windows 10 desktop are not fun to jump around. Not by themselves, of course. But when you try to move the icon to the left side of the desktop, it spontaneously jumps back to its original place.
This doesn't happen all the time, but quite often. That's why it's annoying.
Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to arrange individual icons in a convenient place.
And in this post - about what to do if such a bug appeared in Windows 10 and now the icons do not move and jump.
So, we have found only two ways to eliminate this trouble so far. But both are quite effective and now we will talk about them.
method No. One - align icons
That is, just right-click on any place on the desktop that is free from icons, then in the pop-up menu, select " View " and then turn on - " Align icons to grid ". The option to align the icons will automatically line them up, after which they will move without unnecessary “maneuvers”.
If the jumping bug happens again, just align the icons in this way again. The only inconvenience is that fewer of them will fit on the desktop, since the system will arrange them at large intervals. Therefore, you can also customize the placement of icons using Registry Editor .
You can do this in the following way:
- Press the Windows button on your keyboard and type in the search bar regedit.exe , press Enter and then in the results of the double click error we launch Windows Registry Editor (he - Windows Registry Editor);
- confirm the account (UAC) if the system issues a request;
- further into left side window " editor» click HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics ;
- now in right side windows we find two files:
IconSpacing (determines the distance between the icons on the desktop horizontally): change the default value -1725 (right-click on the file name, in the menu click " Change" and then - " OK“) to a value in the range from -480 to -2730 (a hyphen before the number is mandatory);
IconVerticalSpacing (distance between icons vertically): the default value of -1725 is also changed in the range from -480 to -2730.
- for the changes to take effect, you must either restart the computer, or in " Task Manager» (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) end the process, and then start it again for « Explorer» (explorer.exe).
method number two - grab and drag aimingly
And this is not a joke at all. As it turned out, a bug due to which icons jump , appears or does not appear depending on where the mouse cursor is during the process of moving the icon. And if you move the icon, "grabbing" it with the mouse cursor on the left side, then in most cases it moves normally and does not jump anywhere.
Dozens of months after the release of Windows 10, it can still surprise the user audience with new bugs. No matter how many of them are eliminated, the number of problems does not decrease much: one was eliminated - two appeared in place, three problems were solved - this caused another one. Yes, and there is more of a variety of them than in the same XP. Today we will look at what actions to take when shortcuts on the desktop blink and the screen blinks on Windows 10.
A more or less experienced user should understand that the source of the problem lies in the video system, or rather, in its drivers. Of course, the monitor driver or a bad connection between the cable connecting the video card and the monitor and one of these devices can also be the culprit, but most often the software for the video adapter causes the flickering display.
What does Microsoft say about this?
The first thing to do when the screen is flashing is to check if the problem is everywhere.
1. Call the "Task Manager" by opening the menu Win→X.
2. See if the flicker effect applies to it.
4. Launch the Administrative Tools tool through the Control Panel or search.
5. Call the Event Viewer component.
6. Go to "Windows Logs".
7. Open the file "System" and "Applications" in order to find events of the "Error" or "Warning" level.
8. Having found the culprit, we close the application and terminate all its processes in the Task Manager, if any remain.
Did not help?
9. We uninstall it through Programs and Features by running the applet through the search box.
10. After restarting the PC, we try to install the application for our edition of the operating system again. To do this, download its latest version, if any.
Based on user comments, the problems are Norton's antivirus, IDT's audio driver (the one for the 64-bit OS), and iCloud.
Problem with video adapter driver
If flickering appeared after the video driver was installed or updated automatically through the Update Center, you should do the following:
- remove the installed software and all its components through the integrated uninstaller or Driver Display Uninstaller;
- download a new edition of the software for your video card, suitable for the edition of the installed operating system from the official page of the driver developer;
- install a fresh program through the installer and restart the computer.
In no way should you trust this task with third-party applications for finding and updating drivers, and even more so with the Update Center.
After the reboot, if the problem also persists, update Windows 10.
1. Press Win + I to call "Options".
2. Go to the last section of the new menu, which is responsible for receiving updates.
3. Click on the button to search for updates and install them after it is completed, refusing to update the graphics driver.
4. Reboot and check for a problem with the image flashing.
And finally, a few useful tips, the first of which could have been placed at the beginning of the article, but the software update has not harmed anyone yet (although in the case of the "top ten" the issue may be moot):
- we check the reliability of connecting the cable that transmits data from the video card to the monitor;
- reinstall monitor drivers;
- try to connect the output device through a different interface.
It may also be useful to boot from Last Known Good Configuration and Safe Mode if the driver cannot be reinstalled normally.
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