custom order of Desktop icons messed up, would restoring registry

I had just changed my screen resolution on my older win98 computer
before starting a movie to play it full screen without slowdowns when
the computer promptly crashed by locking up on the BSOD. After hitting
the reset button, when the computer booted up again, the screen
resolution was far lower than I thought possible. It was at least as low
as 320x240, if not lower. It looked like magnifier was in use, except
that the whole screen was repesented in this reduced space. With some
difficulity because the option I needed was off the screen, I was able
to adjust the display settings to fix things, but this messed up the
custom order of my desktop icons to a seemingly random order. I've spent
a lot of time optimizing them. It has persisted after a reboot. Would
restoring one of the automatic registry backups fix this? I haven't done
anything that would make any significant changes to the registry in at
least a month (aside from this problem), and figuring I turn the
computer off every night, restoring the registry shouldn't hurt
anything, or so I hope.

thanatoid
Sat Mar 15 11:55:56 PDT 2008

SlickRCBD <spamyourself@127.0.0.1> wrote in
news:VcqdncMUS-QyiEHanZ2dnUVZ_h6hnZ2d@comcast.com:

There are only two ways of managing desktop icons (thank you
MS), WinTidy from PC Magazine (overkill and slightly buggy) and
the utility from www.iconsaver.com

(There are a few other programs around but they are way too
buggy and complicated.)

As Franc Zabkar told me (after I asked all over the place for 10
(!!!) years), the icon order is stored as the first "stream" in
the registry windows section and is re-written every time you
shut down. Restoring the registry MIGHT fix this but not
permanently. It WILL keep on fucking up unless you use one of
the utilities above.

I don't know enough to even guess why your screen image went
down to such a tiny size but that is something you should
investigate. That should NOT happen without a VERY good reason
(like playing some REALLY weird ancient DOS game or something).
But then again, Windows is Windows.

--
Savagery of the relationships between people. Here, everyone is
on the make, all of them doing their damndest to take someone
else by surprise, to relieve this man of his property, to enjoy
that girl's flesh. There is no gentleness, there are only
pleasures. Eyes which already devour the easy prey offered them,
eyes which seek out the chink in the armour, the weak point, the
little patch of pale skin into which the nails can sink and
bring blood spurting out. Spying eyes, fierce eyes, sharp eyes
which loathe and wound. A look which passes summary judgment, a
knowing look, one which wants, not to understand, but to keep at
a distance, to consume at a distance. A kind of tentacle, eye-
sucker clamped to the intellect's stomach. The world is not
pure. The world is free, roamed by wild animals, inhabited by
greedy, hate-filled monsters. Loneliness, indifference: hatred.

J.M.G. LeClézio