John,

[Me]
Or maybe just send some WM_xxxx messages to the dekstop window and see if I
can alter the icon grid that way.

And that turns out to be rather easy: Just walk your way down the desktop
controls until you have the SysListView32 one and than use SetWindowPos to
move it around. :-)

No idea yet how long the change "sticks" though ...

Regards,
Rudy Wieser