How do I stop my icons from reorganizing?

I normally run a lap-top in a network and every time I log-in/out it
synchronizes with files on a server. I can also log in and access the systems
from any box in the network with my personal profile active. I have activated
the option to be able to place icons in small logical groups on the screen
(instead of to be packed together and put in to lines at the left side).

However this does not happen any more! Unless if I skip the sync. then I get
to keep the layout that I had! But if I do sync. then I can see that almost
all the icons get reorganized in the "packed" manner. How do I gain control
over this? There must be some critical file in my lap-top that holds the
desired information that is not getting over and updating the server as I do
the log-out sync.

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"XML is bigger than the WEB itself"