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!
Grey x's on all desktop icons Windows 8.1
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.
Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage
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Anonymous
2014-12-12T17:59:33+00:00 Yup I read it all. I gave some examples of software that adds overlay icons, but I don't have a full list of every program on earth that has this capability built into it. If I could spend 10 minutes with your computer we could probably find which program is doing it, based on a little investigation.
I had it on all icons initially. Then I found everyone allows me to "fix" it. I went through all to fix it. Now most are OK except Store, OneDrive and Photos. All are MSFT products. They appear to be working fine. However, the annoying "X" is very stubborn.
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@CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator2014-12-12T16:06:51+00:00 Yup I read it all. I gave some examples of software that adds overlay icons, but I don't have a full list of every program on earth that has this capability built into it. If I could spend 10 minutes with your computer we could probably find which program is doing it, based on a little investigation.
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Anonymous
2014-12-11T23:29:54+00:00 Microsoft can't fix what some other company draws onto your icons, sorry. Contact the company that put it there.
I'm not sure if you read my entire post. I did NOT use any of the three "outside" SW or services mentioned.
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@CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator2014-12-11T22:08:50+00:00 Microsoft can't fix what some other company draws onto your icons, sorry. Contact the company that put it there.