Desktop icons constantly rewriting

[cal_tony]

For the longest time, using windows XP home edition, I have a noticed that using explorer or other programs in less than full screen mode, that when clicking them on, my desktop icons, and I do have a lot of them, will rewrite to generic icons and then one by one rewrite themselves back to their original icons. The program that I have clicked on now has to wait for these icons to rewrite themselves. I have seen posts and looked on the Windows svc sites but have found very little regarding this problem.

Don't know if it is a display problem or a windows problem.
Any thoughts?

Tony

[SLK001]

Windows problem.

Download a program called "Icon_Restore" and run it. It will install the layout.dll from Windows NT, and also give you a "Save Desktop Layout" and "Restore Desktop Layout" accessible via a right-click on "My Computer".

Once installed, arrange your desktop how you want it, then click "Save Desktop Layout". Anytime your desktop needs to be restored, you can click on "Restore Desktop Layout" to return it to its former glory.

[aedipuss]

cal_tony - that sounds like a normal explorer "refresh", it re-writes the screen and updates folders. the slower your computer the more noticeable it is. pain in the ass but afaik it happens to all winXP installs.

[cal_tony]

aedipuss,

I reluctantly thought that might be the problem or just not enough memory. Your right, in that nothing gets lost or moved it's just a slow rewrite.
And yes, the computer is a way slow 1.6 P4 w/ 512 of memory. I know it's time for a new one. I've just been too lazy to put one together. Been mostly waiting to put something together for Hidef and MP4 crunching, I guess the time has finally come.

Tony

[redwudz]

I would also check to see if there is a updated driver for your video card. Not likely the problem, but just might give your graphics handling a boost. A slow refresh could be related to your card settings. I'm guessing a 'gf 440' is a Nvidia card. Maybe a GeForce MX440? If so, this would seem to be the latest driver: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_93.71_2.html

But you can check your graphics card version in 'Control Panel>Display>Settings>Advanced>Adapter'

[Soopafresh]

I guess the time has finally come.

I just put together a new PC. Once a system works perfectly and performs well with all the media you throw at it, you can always justify the price in your mind.

[Midzuki]

aedipuss wrote:

cal_tony - that sounds like a normal explorer "refresh", it re-writes the screen and updates folders. the slower your computer the more noticeable it is. pain in the ass but afaik it happens to all winXP installs.

That's the gist. Just a mere consequence of the fact that XP's file management
was badly-written and intentionally overbloated.

I've managed to minimize the problem by assigning the same icon to most
desktop shortcuts (may look stupid, but it works :P )

[Squash]

I had that problem with XP Home. This was on an Athlon 2800+ with 2 GB of RAM, so the computer wasn't all that slow. I tried unsuccessfully to track down the cause. A lot of people said it was Windows Explorer crashing, though the only sign of it was the frequent and annoying re-draw of the icons.

Explorer runs all the time in the background; often stopping its process and re-starting it via Task Manager would help for awhile. I'd guess the problem is related to invoking another Explorer process in addition to the one already running, or when another program would invoke an instance, but I don't know. In my case I don't think it was normal behavior because it wasn't always like that.

I finally switched to xplorer2 from Zabkat as a replacement file manager and the problem went away. I liked it so much better than Windows Explorer that I kept using it on my newer Vista PC, though I've never seen that problem when I use Vista's Explorer.

There's a free lite version of xplorer2 if you want to try it out.

[cal_tony]

Thank you all.
I will up date my GeForce 440 mx. As long as my problem is not an anomaly, I will make adjustments and also get off my butt and fill one of my old boxes with a new MB and chip.

Also, getting most of the icons off my desktop couldn't hurt.

Again, thank you very much.

Tony