Hi.

I'm not talking about the icons in fences, but the icons outside of fences. In Windows 10 without Fences installed, all the icons on the desktop have their places automatically remembered when the resolution changes, and they return to their placements after a program that changes the resolution closes.

After Fences is installed, this no longer happens and icons get rearranged on the desktop after a program that lowered the resolution is closed.

If you only have 1 icon outside of fences then you would likely never run into this issue.

As you can see in my screenshots in this thread, I have many, many icons outside of my fences (I also have many many icons inside fences): https://forums.stardock.com/488882/page/1/#3713030

And that's maybe only half of the icons I had outside of fences across 5 pages. So, the issue is a big deal for me.

I can tell you that this behaviour is not the same with Fences installed or not installed:

With Fences not installed, Windows 10 remembers icon placements when a program changes the resolution, and then automatically restores their placements after the program that changed their resolution is closed.

With Fences installed, that does not happen anymore, and icons are rearranged all over the place, or often crammed into the top-left corner of the screen.

Respectfully, the "auto arrange icons" setting has nothing to do with the issue that I've mention. The auto arrange setting only fills up the icon rows along the desktop without spaces, starting from the top-left and working to the bottom of the screen, before going to the next row closest to the top-left and doing the same.

Yet, it happens. You only have a single icon outside of your fences, and not dozens, possibly hundreds like I do, across 4 or 5 pages when I'm using Fences. So, maybe you'll not encounter an issue that could be caused by conflicts across many pages.

I also didn't see this happening when I had 2 or 3 pages, and only after I was using 4 and 5 pages filled with icons.

I made a video that shows it happening: https://youtu.be/UPiGp55WQz4

By the way, from what I recall, restarting the computer would make the problem stop. But, it would randomly appear again somewhere else, as if certain spot on the desktop became invalid spots to move an icon to - probably because there's an icon in that place on another page and something to do with Fences is causing a conflict. Maybe Fences can't handle unlimited pages and unlimited icons on the desktop.

You also only have 1 icon outside of fences. So, you're unlikely to run into this issue. Also, I only have noticed the issue at random times - it normally doesn't happen. But, when it does happen, it's very disruptive.

It is logically an issue caused by Fences because it is an issue that is only possible to occur when there are multiple desktop pages. When not using Fences multiple pages don't exist for icons from another page to possibly be teleported to the page that you're currently using.

The only custom desktop software running my PC has been Fences. I also have Startisback to replace the start menu, but it doesn't do anything to the desktop, and Fences doesn't do anything to the start menu. So, they seem to be exclusive.

Hello,

I am just not certain anyone has pushed the limits of Fences like you are:  'Hundreds of icons across 4 or 5 pages'.  However, I'll see about possibly trying to produce such an environment to test but it may take some time.

That said, and as I pointed out in your other thread, restoring snapshots when a res change messes with some icon alignment / placement should help.

----------------
Sean Drohan
Stardock Customer Service Manager

Hi. I've made a video showing that Windows 10 automatically remembers icon placement across resolution changes.

In the video, I load an old game that uses a much smaller resolution than the desktop and then quit back to Windows.

After quitting the game, before the resolution switches back to the native desktop resolution, the desktop icons appear very large and reorganized across the desktop to fit within the smaller resolution that was used for the game. After a couple of seconds, though, Windows switches back to the native desktop resolution and automatically places all the desktop icons back where they originally were.

For some reason, after installing Fences, Windows no longer automatically puts icons back where they were before the resolution switched to a lower one. And so, with Fences, after a program changes the resolution to a lower one and then that program is quit, the icons are left disorganized across the desktop.

The Fences snapshot feature can help with this, but it would be better if Windows' native ability to remember and restore icon placements worked even after Fences is installed. That way, there wouldn't have to be extra window opening and click to reload an icon placement, and icon placements wouldn't have to be saved after every change or addition of icons.