Auto-Sorting Icons to Wrong Monitor

from Stardock Forums

Hi there,

I recently moved to a new office, and took my 2 monitors with me.

Now, when Sort is enabled, Fences continuously relocates all my desktop icons (not ones in fences) to my 2nd monitor. I can find no way to get them to stay on the primary monitor, despite it being designated as such and despite every other Windows program treating it as such.

The only option is to turn off Sort and manually relocate them, but that's not ideal because as additional icons get added to the desktop they aren't in order.

I've tried resetting the Preserve Desktop Layout options (and outright changing them) to no avail.

Any ideas how to fix this?

Screenshot below to assist :

fences
16,036 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

It sounds like your Display settings have the left monitor as the primary. They will be placed there automatically. Did you turn off Auto-Arrange? How about align to grid?

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Display settings are set to correctly make the monitor on the left (the ones the icons SHOULD be on, but are not) as the primary display.

Icons set to Auto Arrange and Align To Grid makes no difference, on or off. You can move the icons as long as sorting is disabled, but as soon as you enable any sorting (eg by Name) the icons relocate to the incorrect monitor on the right.

If it makes any difference : the physical monitors used to be in the opposite location in my old computer - it's not got a registry/config option that's remembering monitor 2 as the old location of those icons even though it's no longer set as primary display, is it?

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Could you move the icons to the correct monitor, then take a snapshot with Fences and see if it continues afterwards, after a reboot even?

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

I can't move the icons at all as long as any sort of Sort is enabled. They just return to the wrong monitor.

Turning off sort, I can relocate them, take a snapshot, and reboot, and they stay in place. But as soon as any further icons are added they are no longer in sort order, and re-enabling Sort at any point returns them to the wrong monitor instantly.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

BlackrazorNZ - I've created a ticket for you so we can try some more ideas. You should receive the email shortly.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks. I have sent logs in reply to the email sent.

To date, I have : 

  • Reinstalled latest video drivers.
  • Flashed latest BIOS.
  • Changed monitor cable order.
  • Changed monitor cable plugging location.
  • Physically relocated monitors.

To no avail. It appears the issue is definitively with Fences, as demonstrable by what happens when you disable Fences.

 

Fences on : 

 

Fences off - notice that icons correctly sort to the primary monitor :

 

This is getting to be enough of a pain in the derriere that I am almost at the point of uninstalling Fences, which I don't want to do as it is so useful.

Many thanks.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

... and now my actual Fences are migrating to the secondary monitor. I swear there must be a Fence-magnet attached to the right hand side of my secondary monitor.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Problem now resolved. Ran a batch file provided by Stardock support which wipes all registry settings post-deinstall of Fences, then physically swapped monitors.

 

It appears the issues is caused because Fences seem to ALWAYS sort standard desktop icons to the monitor assigned ID 1, regardless of which actual monitor is specified as the Primary Monitor inside Windows settings. Which is problematic given you cannot change monitor ID numbers, only the layout.

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Glad we got it sorted for you.

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

I have the exact same issue. Windows 8.1.

Can you please send me the batch file?

 

Thnaks

Liam

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top

liam4 - I've created a ticket for you and you should receive it shortly.