Nanoscale copper rings of different radii, thicknesses, and widths were synthesized on silicon dioxide thin films and were subsequently liquefied via a nanosecond pulse laser treatment. During the nanoscale liquid lifetimes, the rings experience competing retraction dynamics and thin film and/or Rayleigh–Plateau types of instabilities, which lead to arrays of ordered nanodroplets. Surprisingly, the results are significantly different from those of similar experiments carried out on a Si surface. (1) We use hydrodynamic simulations to elucidate how the different liquid/solid interactions control the different instability mechanisms in the present problem.