Why does Start11 v2 move all icons on the desktop?

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. But, I am not sure Start11 move desktop icons. How you determine that Start11 v2 is doing it?

Thank you.
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

All the icons were on my main monitor but after I installed Start11 v2, the icons moved to the secondary monitor. When restarting Explorer, the icons appear on the right monitor for a split second, Start11 loads, and then all the icons move over to the secondary monitor.

Strange this is the first time I ever come across such report. Do you have any other 3rd party application that dealing with Start Panel, explorer and/or taskbar installed in your system? That might cause compatible issue with Start11.

Also, please try this, uninstall Start11, reboot immediately after. Check it the desktop icons not moving when Start11 uninstalled. If it is not moved. Redownload Start11 again from your product account page. Reinstall it. Reboot and see if the issue return. Report back.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

OK, so I completely uninstalled Start11. I went to the Settings backup tab and clicked on "Reset settings". Everything seemed normal until I began to recreate my previous setup manually as versus restoring my settings backup. First, I enabled "Let Start11 enhance the taskbar". I then came down to the taskbar and resized my taskbar like I normally do because I like a double-decker taskbar and then *boom*, all the icons moved to the secondary monitor. I resized the taskbar back to a single row and like magic, the icons came back to the primary desktop.

This is very strange. Mind you, this requires a setup with two or more monitors to experience.

I think something else is managing your desktop icons which react to Start 11 taskbar size. Do you have any software that manage your desktop icons? Some application do introduce their own desktop overlays. Do you have application like Displayfusion or something like 360 total security which introduce its own desktop organizer. Refer : https://forums.stardock.com/494957/get;3749819.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Nope. Nothing at all like that.

Please try cleanboot : https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1334935592/Start11+Clean+Boot

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

OK, I completely re-installed Windows 11 23H2 not just for this but other reasons as well. As soon as I resize the taskbar *boom*, all the icons get moved to the secondary monitor. I have no other tweaking programs installed, this is a clean install.

https://forums.stardock.com/523854/get;3909218

Had something similar here but got no response.

OK, I'm glad that I'm not going crazy here.

When the taskbar takes more space it will reduce space for icons.

Windows may opt to move them to a display with space.  If you move them back is it then all happy?

Also do you have auto arrange icons enabled in Windows?

Finally how many icons do you have and what configuration is your monitor setup in terms of monitor placement and resolution?

Which side is the primary monitor?

The main monitor is the one on the right, it moves the icons to the one on the left. Both monitors are 27-inch 1440p monitors connected via DisplayPort to an nVidia card.

As a quick test (not a solution just debugging the issue) if you swap the positions in Windows does the problem stop?

There's definitely something going on in Start11 v2.

Just read this on Windows Central; not sure if this has anything to do with your issue, but it's worth a look.

"Windows devices using more than one (1) monitor might experience issues with desktop icons moving unexpectedly between monitors or other icon alignment issues when attempting to use Copilot in Windows (in preview)."

But why does it only happen I attempt to resize the taskbar? That's the strange part.