Lock Up Your Desktop Settings


Don't you hate it when you let people borrow, say, your car, and then you find they've meddled with your presets and misaligned the rearview mirror? The same applies to your Windows desktop. When Windows exits, it saves the icon locations and other settings--unless you lock up the settings with this hack: 

1. Back up the Registry.

2. Launch RegEdit.

3. Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer.

4. In the right hand pane, right-click NoSaveSettings and select Modify.

5. Add a 1 to the value to disable Windows' ability to save settings on exit.

6. Save your changes as you quit RegEdit and restart Windows. 

Warning: Tweaking the Registry is risky; you're taking your system into your own hands. To be safe, manually back up the Registry before you make any changes.