How to programmatically move icons' location from Windows Desktop?

Question

I wish to create a startup job that every time that my Windows starts, it will rearrange some shortcut icons from my desktop to another location, such as right-bottom for example.

Can I make it with VBScript, Powershell, bat command script or even with C\C++\C#\Java?

Answer 1

Desktop is an ordinary listview so you can use windows api to move items to different locations. Have a look at this similar question: How can I programmatically manipulate Windows desktop icon locations?

Answer 2

I come late, but this piece of code works for me and I hope it may help somebody. It's in c++17.

#include <windows.h>
#include <commctrl.h>
#include <ShlObj.h>

int desktop_shuffle() {
    // You must get the handle of desktop's listview and then you can reorder that listview (which contains the icons).
    HWND progman = FindWindow(L"progman", NULL);
    HWND shell = FindWindowEx(progman, NULL, L"shelldll_defview", NULL);
    HWND hwndListView = FindWindowEx(shell, NULL, L"syslistview32", NULL);
    int nIcons = ListView_GetItemCount(hwndListView);

    POINT* icon_positions = new POINT[nIcons];

    // READ THE CURRENT ICONS'S POSITIONS
    if (nIcons > 0) {
        // We must use desktop's virtual memory to get the icons positions, otherwise you won't be able to
        // read their x, y positions.
        DWORD desktop_proc_id = 0;
        GetWindowThreadProcessId(hwndListView, &desktop_proc_id);
        HANDLE h_process = OpenProcess(PROCESS_VM_OPERATION | PROCESS_VM_READ, FALSE, desktop_proc_id);
        if (!h_process)
        {
            printf("OpenProcess: Error while opening desktop UI process\n");
            return -1;
        }

        LPPOINT pt = (LPPOINT)VirtualAllocEx(h_process, NULL, sizeof(POINT), MEM_COMMIT | MEM_RESERVE, PAGE_READWRITE);
        if (!pt)
        {
            CloseHandle(h_process);
            printf("VirtualAllocEx: Error while allocating memory in desktop UI process\n");
            return -1;
        }

        for (int i = 0; i < nIcons; i++)
        {
            if (!ListView_GetItemPosition(hwndListView, i, pt))
            {
                printf("GetItemPosition: Error while retrieving desktop icon (%d) position\n", i);
                continue;
            }

            if (!ReadProcessMemory(h_process, pt, &icon_positions[i], sizeof(POINT), nullptr))
            {
                printf("ReadProcessMemory: Error while reading desktop icon (%d) positions\n", i);
                continue;
            }
        }

        VirtualFreeEx(h_process, pt, 0, MEM_RELEASE);
        CloseHandle(h_process);
    }

    // UPDATE THE ICONS'S POSITIONS
    for (int i = 0; i < nIcons; i++) {
        ListView_SetItemPosition(hwndListView, i, rand(), rand());
    }

    return 0;
}