How to programmatically move icons' location from Windows Desktop?

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?

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;}