ReIcon is portable freeware that enables you to save and restore your desktop icon layout. If you frequently change your screen resolution (e.g. to play games or use applications that require a specific resolution), you are probably familiar with the problem of your desktop icons being jumbled into a mess after you switch back to your normal resolution. ReIcon solves this problem by allowing you to save your desktop icon layout and restore it later with the click of a button (or with the right-click context menu).
ReIcon is very easy to use. Set your icons the way you like them, save the layout, then restore this layout later when the need arises.
ReIcon v2.1 – Monday 27. January 2025
1. [Fixed] – The icons in the user interface are small
2. [Fixed] – Icons not restored due to different file extension settings
3. [Added] – Column sorting function
4. [Added] – High contrast support
5. [Added] – Many improvements have been made in coding
6. [Removed] – Move to the top and drag and drop an item in the list feature (Because of No.3)
Benefits :
– Save your favorite icon layout for each resolution
– Save many different layouts
– It’s portable, no need to install anything
– Unicode support
– Easily add “Save/Restore Icon Layout” to the right-click context menu
– CMD support (at CMD, type ReIcon /? for help)
– Align icons to Grid – this allows you to snap your desktop icons to a grid, similar to Windows’ Auto-Arrange feature)
How To Use ReIcon :
Extract the ZIP to any folder and then run the program. Click the “Save Icon Layout” button to save the current desktop icon layout. Then in the list of saved layouts you will see the name of the “New Icon Layout”, its resolution, and the number of icons. To restore a saved layout, select the layout from the list and then click the “Restore Icon Layout” button.
You can also right-click the saved layout and choose “Restore” from the context menu. Yet another way is to double-click any saved layout in the list to quickly restore that layout. To delete a saved layout, either select the one you wish to remove and click the Delete button, or right click it and select Delete from the context menu.
You can add “Save/Restore icon layout” to your Desktop or My Computer right-click menu. To do so, click the Options menu and then to ‘Add Context Menu‘ , choose an appropriate option. To remove them, go to the same location, and choose “Uninstall All”.
To add only the Restore option to the context menu, select it first, then select ‘Desktop’ and/or ‘My Computer’ to apply to that menu. Clicking the “Add Only Restore Option” and/or “Use Shift Key to Display” will not create context menu entries, only sub-menus. And the result :
If you wish, you can right click the ReIcon Application system tray icon and restore any Icon layout
Note 1: In ReIcon’s Options menu, if “Disable Auto-Arrange” is NOT selected (by default, it is), and the Windows desktop context menu entry ‘View –> Auto-Arrange Icons’ IS selected, then ReIcon’s ‘Restore Icon Layout’ feature may not work properly. To Stop Desktop Icons From Changing Positions after log in , restart or refresh please Untick “Auto Arrange icons” feature.
Note 2: If you have multiple monitors and these monitors have separate icon structures, after saving Icon positions layouts , Desktop context menu auto align to grid feature must not be marked, because after the restore , it causes the icons on the closed monitor to appear on the active desktop. In addition, Align Icons To Grid feature shouldn’t be selected in the program settings (under disable auto Arrange)
To automatically restore your saved desktop icon layout when you log in:
Right-click the backup you created in the ReIcon list and select ‘Add shortcut to startup folder’. This will add the shortcut to the startup folder. To remove the shortcut from the startup folder, right-click the backup in the list again and uncheck it.
Note: To start ReIcon in the tray during the user session, you must select “Start ReIcon with Windows” from the Options menu.
How to change Icon layout order On GUI
In this new version of ReIcon, you can change the order of saved icon layouts by clicking on the column header.
ReIcon has CMD (command line) support. The options for this are shown below :
How to backup with ID: You can use this command to overwrite an existing profile (if it already exists)
ReIcon_x64.exe /s /ID id , for example :
ReIcon_x64.exe /s /ID elq
How to restore any backup with ID:
ReIcon_x64.exe /r /ID id , for example :
ReIcon_x64.exe /r /ID elq
How to define the save path with parameter and ID (You can use any extension)
ReIcon_x64.exe /S /File D:\ID , for example :
ReIcon_x64.exe /S /File D:\abc.ini
Restore with path:
ReIcon_x64.exe /R /File D:\ID , for example :
ReIcon_x64.exe /R /File D:\abc.ini
Supported operating systems: Windows 11 , Windows 10 , Windows 8.1 , Windows 8 , Windows 7 , Windows Vista , Windows xp – (both x86 and x64)
Supported languages: English , Turkish , German , French , Polish , Hungarian , Russian , Chinese (Simplified) , Korean , Swedish , Portuguese (Brazilian) , Czech , Japanese , Spanish , Dutch (Nederlands) , Romanian , Italian , Greek , Hebrew , Lithuanian , Slovak , Vietnamese, Ukrainian
File: ReIcon_x64.exe │ Virustotal
MD5: a28f49b2c14d03be11113d1e73add435
SHA1: 15c3721fd9ca54ec684605c8299b53e89a196894
File: ReIcon.exe │ Virustotal
MD5: 0601726b3be6f0cd18bf80ccaeb0350c
SHA1: 3770550e5e532bdf537a2a83ae249748d5e7ee2d
Thank you so much for this wonderful app !!!
Firstly I saved the icon layout, and delete some icons and save it as another layout for a particular task (profile), and I tried to restore the first/original layout but it doesn’t work so I realised that all the existing icons must be there for it to work. Oh well, at least I am still using ReIcon as I have been using for years and years as some non-windowed (dos-like) games DO mess up the icons!
I have been having an issue where I will place the shortcut in the startup and it will change the icons but when it refreshes it will go back to where they were. If I move one icon manually and then try it again they move and stay. Any reason why this would happen? Using windows 10 version 1607. Domain Joined. Using the Recon 64bit version.
The program is great and does a great job of restoring icon layout after exisitng a full screen game with a resolution other than the desktop’s.
The program is only missing, saving layouts for open windows? The windows size and location could be saved as well.
Hello,
thanks for the great application. I have for you a tip for improvement: would it be possible to add option for dealing with icons that are not in the saved state? So basically when I would restore the saved state, ReIcon would first move all the icons that are not included in the saved state to trash (or some predefined folder, the path could be part of the configuration) and then sort the rest. So after restoring the state, the desktop would look exactly as in the moment of saving and the icons that are not in the saved state would not be scattered around like now…
Thanks for your feedback Anthony
Just as an update to my previous comment I was able to use the /S and /R switch in our Citrix environment so that it saves the config in the users profile.
Hi,
Regarding Ricks comment, it does appear in File Explorer too, but only if you Right Click on one of the folders or drives in that left hand navigation pane under “This PC”.
Also for me I was looking to use this a RDS/Citrix environment on Windows 2012 R2 server. It kind of works but its not usable because it saves the layouts under C:\ProgramData\ReIcon. In a RDS/Citrix environment users move between servers so it would be good if there was option that it saved the layout configs inside the user profile so that it stayed with them between servers.
Thanks for your comment , tested and there is no such problem , if you use another file explorer it may cause this.
Great Tool, thank you!
Found an issue with Context Menu however :
– using “Add To Context Menu”->Dektop also causes the “Desktop Icon Layout” context menu to show up in File Explorer, and
– “Use Shift Key to Display” does not seem to work – ie. the context menu still shows up without the Shift key.
Not a biggie, just some polish.
LOVE V1.8 THANKS!!
Thanks a lot for the update !!!
False Positive issue fixed , Thanks for the feedback
could not save it.
antivirus defender identifies a Trojan in the zip file.
a reply and workout needed
Thank you so much for this wonderful app !
thanks
Old pc – File -> Export
New Pc- File -> Import