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Recently a client discover that all of their desktop icons (files and shortcuts) have large Grey X's in the corner on their Windows 8.1 home PC. The files are still accessible upon click through to them. They do not have a tape drive (one possible cause I have seen) and the shortcuts point to various locations on the primary C: drive (documents folder etc). Repairing the icon cache temporarily resolved but it seems to just come back again. They are running Carbonite as a backup, however a brief search of "Carbonite with Grey X's on icons" has not yet yielded anything either. Any help would be welcomed.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
I experienced the problem for the first time ever this morning in one of my laptops After tracking what I did this morning that might had caused it, I finally remembered to have installed an update for Boxcryptor. After uninstalling the Boxcryptor app, the grey X's disappeared from all those folder its was on. Bingo! Hope it helps!
There's nothing in the Windows programming to make those appear, you must have some additional software installed doing it. Known culprits include Dropbox, Norton Safety, Norton backup, Carbonite, Boxcryptor, and more.
If you don't know what program you've got on your computer that's doing it, there's not a ton Microsoft would suggest beyond erasing your drive and being more careful about what you install the next time.
My suggestion is to use a tool like AutoRuns or even just plain MSNCONFIG to try to identify what program you've got that's integrating the icons.
I am having this problem (the original one with grey X's on the desktop shortcuts). I think that it is associated with One Drive and Microsoft Office Upload Center. This problem started after I installed Office 365 and started using One Drive more aggressively. Shortly after that, I started getting reports that a CSV file that I had downloaded and opened with Excel wouldn't upload (Upload Center), then I saw a couple warnings from One Drive about four Office documents (3 Excel and one Word) that it couldn't synch (all of which are synched with my work computer as well. It was only after these synch errors that I noticed the X's.
Using AutoRuns, I see entries for "Overlay Identifiers" that are all "SkyDrive Pro" entries, under this key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers
I do use Drop box (none of the other third party stuff), but I've hardly used it since getting a ton of OneDrive space, and it has had zero synch errors.
There's nothing in the Windows programming to make those appear, you must have some additional software installed doing it. Known culprits include Dropbox, Norton Safety, Norton backup, Carbonite, Boxcryptor, and more.
If you don't know what program you've got on your computer that's doing it, there's not a ton Microsoft would suggest beyond erasing your drive and being more careful about what you install the next time.
My suggestion is to use a tool like AutoRuns or even just plain MSNCONFIG to try to identify what program you've got that's integrating the icons.
It didn't help. I don't have Boxcryptor. However, I believe it has something to do with a similar issue. Just not sure which app caused it. If I recalled, it happened after I updated the OS.
I'm extremely disappointed by MS as they don't seem to care about all the complaints.
Hi C.Sa,
Thank you, a picture is worth a 1000 words. I see now that this is different than the one posted by Bob on page #1 of this discussion showing icon overlays on the desktop. As you saw from the many others that posted confirmations about the cause and thanks for solution, that was accurate on the desktop.
This is different and is not a file overlay (the Start screen doesn't show files). The x in your screenshot indicates a program is broken and cannot start.
