Arranging Desktop Icons

To organize scattered icons: Right-click the Desktop and select "Arrange Icons". From there you can choose to arrange your icons alphabetically, by size, by type or by date modified.

For those of you who do want the ability to move your icons around, but they won't move out of their current location, you may have them set to "Auto arrange". Right-click your desktop, Arrange icons by, and make sure the "Auto Arrange" option is unchecked.

With Auto Arrange off you can also drag your icons to anywhere you want on your desktop.

If you have XP you can also run the desktop cleanup wizard from here, this will clear any unused shortcuts from your desktop and move them to their own folder.