Word File Shifts Position On Desktop After Accessing It

I open a document, edit it, and then save it and close Word.   It opens at the same spot each time. That works.

If this does not work for you, try:

1. Full Office Repair (not Quick)

2. New, test, Windows User Profile to see if Word works differently in a different Windows User Account

Items on your desktop are usually sorted in a particular way. Right mouse click on your desktop and click View. Make sure that autoarrange is not turned on (check marked)
 Now  you should be able to drag your icon anywhere you like.

Karen

Auto arranged is already turned off!

John

I do click save before exiting every time. I don't have a choice even if I wanted to click on the x to exit I get a prompt asking if I want to save the changes . After doing so the document decides to change location why?

ok on auto arrange - but how is it set?

Try saving the Document before exiting. That is, do not Exit and then Save, but rather Save and then Exit.

If you choose to exit and save after, Word will change its opening position next time. Nothing you can do about that except live with it.

Hi Nobus, are you saying Auto Arrange is indeed on?
Also, how are you launching your docs? If you open through Word, you will have better success. After launching Word, navigate to the File menu On the right panel, you should see recent docs you have opened. Hover your cursor over the desired doc and click on the pushpin button to keep that on top.
Going forward, always open Word first and then navigate to your docs. The added advantage is that you can now close a doc and keep Word open

Auto Arrange affects Icons (yes) but not the position of Word when it open as an application

If you choose to exit and save after, Word will change …  Nothing you can do about that except live with it.

If you need some proof of this, open Word or Excel with a document or spreadsheet.  Now open a second occurrence of Word and/or Excel to open another document or spreadsheet.

Notice that the second occurrence of the application is offset from the first occurrence.

What you are seeing is by design, at least in part.

John

I do SAVE before I exist. Also I have align icons to grid is checked but not Auto Arrange is not checked.

maybe you have malware - did you check that with MBAM ?

Icon arrangement does not affect the position of Word (or Excel, or … ) on the screen,

Certainly as Nobus suggests, check for viruses.

When you open a Microsoft Office file it creates a hidden temporary file in the same folder as the file you have opened to store your edits, even if you haven't made any changes to the document.  When the application is closed the temporary file is removed.  Because most people have Windows Explorer set so that hidden files do not show, and because the Office application window is usually full screen, most people are not aware of this hidden temporary file.

In a normal folder nothing really matters, because when the document is closed and the hidden file is removed, things are just as they were.  The Desktop is still a folder, but it has special characteristics that make it what it is.  Some people like their files and shortcuts on the desktop to automatically sort and snap into place on a grid, but I think most people like to be able to move certain files and shortcuts to fixed places on the desktop where they can be located easily.  These settings and positions are stored in the Windows registry.  The problem with the desktop is that when an office document is opened, the hidden temporary file is created somewhere in a free space.  If your desktop is quite full of shortcuts and files I think that some may be "pushed" out of the way to make space for the new hidden file, and I THINK that when you close the Office application the file you had opened is now moved to where the temporary file was.

I would have to experiment and see whether this is true, but I can tell you that this happens a lot to me on my Windows 7 computer at work and is a nuisance.  The only way you would be able to make your own observations would be to change your Windows Explorer settings to "show hidden files", then minimize the application window after opening a file to see where that hidden temporary file has been created, and then watch where the file is moved to when you close the application window.  To show hidden files in Windows 10 follow these steps:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028316/windows-view-hidden-files-and-folders-in-windows-10

Thank you BillDL for your elaborate explanation. I do see the temporary file and it does go away when I click refresh on the desktop. i do not have a lot of icons on my desktop either. In file Explorer the show hidden files is already checked. But the show icons always never thumbnails is NOT checked.

John-Nobus

I do not have any malware!

good for you !

Then as I noted above, what you are seeing is normal.

No it is not. Can someone help please?

Yes it is normal in that Windows moves things around. If you believe otherwise, make a new and test Windows User Profile and try Office in the new Profile

Can some expert please help me?

Did you try the new User Profile to test?

if it was ok before -you can use a system restore to a date it was ok

Nobus

It was always always like that. I do not think that system restore will do anything.

John

I will go head and issue credit for your attempt to help me. Thank you.

Thank you John.

You are very welcome -  Please do try a new profile when you have the chance.  Office is picky this way

is this pc upgraded from win7 or 8 ?
or is it a fresh install?

what happens if you uninstall/reinstall  Office? same problem?

It was upgraded from Windows 8.1. I had office uninstalled and reinstalled .

I may have a suggestion, but first I would need to see what settings your computer has.  It concerns the setting that dictates how much spacing or padding there is between desktop icons.  It seems that some previous Windows Updates changed these settings and caused similar issues for some people.  It is also possible that upgrading from one version of Windows to another could leave settings that cause similar issues.

These settings are stored in the Windows registry.  This is not a place that people should be poking around unless they know exactly what they are doing, so be very careful.

Click Start and type REGEDIT in the search field.
Click on regedit when it shows.
(https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001348.htm)
A new 2-paned window should open.  Maximize the window.
It resembles Windows Explorer with the folder pane in the left.
The "folders" in the left pane are "Keys" that can be expanded to show the sub-keys by clicking te + symbol.

If the window opens with all the main keys in the left pane collapsed (as shown in the first screenshot in the page linked to above) that is fine and you can start drilling down to te key you need.

If some of the keys are expanded it has remembered where it was the last time anybody had regedit open.  What to do in this case is scroll right back up to the top in the left pane, click on the top item named "My Computer", then close and re-open Regedit.  It should open this time with all the keys collapsed.

Click on the + next to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER" to expand that and look for "Control Panel".
Click on the + to expand "Control Panel" and then look for "Desktop".
Click on the + to expand "Desktop" and then look for "WindowMetrics".
Click ON the "WindowMetrics" key in the LEFT pane and you will see all the stored values in the RIGHT pane.

Look for "IconSpacing" and "IconVerticalspacing" and take a note of the values under the "Data" column and let me know what these are.

Alternatively, while you are clicked on the "WindowMetrics" key in the LEFT pane, you can go up to the FILE menu at the top and choose EXPORT, and change the type of file to save to a Text File (*.TXT) that you can save wherever you want and attach to your next comment.

Be sure to close the Regedit window as soon as possible after either noting the relevant values or exporting the settings to a text file.

Let me see if I can do this . I am not very technical like you . Thank you my friend.

That's good that you found the setting.  I am going to suggest that you change two of those values slightly, but first it is always a good idea to create a backup *.REG file before making any changes.  I am confident that there will not be any drastic changes made, but I am hopeful that this small tweak to the spacing of the icons might just fix the issue as it seems to have done for some other users.

Take a note of the Icon spacing values that you currently have, namely -1128

1. Navigate back to the "WindowMetrics" key in the LEFT pane and click on it as you did to take the screenshot.
2. Go up to the FILE menu at the top left of the Regedit window and choose EXPORT.
3. Make sure that the "Selected Branch" field in the Export dialog shows: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
4. Navigate to a folder like your Desktop to save the file and leave the default file type set to "Registration Files (*.reg)"
5. In the blank "File Name" field type in a logical name like "Backup_Icon_Spacing".
6. Click the "Save" button.

Minimize the Regedit window to show your Desktop, or navigate in File Explorer to wherever you saved the *.REG file, to ensure that it is there, then restore the Regedit window ready for you to edit two values as follows:

1. In the RIGHT pane DOUBLE CLICK on  "IconSpacing" (the value that is two above the one highlighted in your screenshot).
2. A small dialog entitled "Edit String" will show and the "Value data" field will contain the value     -1128
3. Change that value to    -1125    (including the minus sign) and then click the OK button to save the new value and close the dialog.
4. Now do exactly the same with the "IconVerticalspacing" value.
5. CLOSE REGEDIT and Restart the computer.

Try to replicate the issue with the Office document to see if it still jumps to a different position on the Desktop.  If it does not, then the issue MAY be solved, however if the same issue persists you can go back into Regedit and change the values back to  -1128
You can also RIGHT-Click on the saved *.REG file and choose "MERGE" to write the original values back to the registry.

Thank you sir. Please give me an opportunity to work on this project. I am afraid I may ruin something.

Hi Basem.  As long as you follow the instructions, the worst that can happen is your desktop icons might be moved around a bit on the Desktop after you restart, but I think that this minor (temporary) nuisance will be worthwhile putting up with to test whether this registry edit fixes the issue.  I will be away for almost a week with no Internet access, but other experts will be able on hand to give advice.  Hopefully the matter will be resolved when I log in here again, but if not at least we tried and failed rather than not trying something as simple as this that might have worked.

if you are afraid - take an image of the drive before starting - put it on another drive, and test with that; so you keep the Original
on the other hand, if you backup the registry, you can Always restore the keys as they werr
3rd option : a system restore : make an system restore point BEFORE starting