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
2014-12-09T22:34:17+00:00 How do I resolve this issue..?
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Anonymous
2014-12-03T20:44:44+00:00 Why is it suddenly doing that over the past two weeks when it never did it before? I've not changed my Norton settings in the 7 months it's been on this computer. How do I make it stop?
Your back up probably hasn't had any problem in the past few months. This indicator is trying to tell you something. In this case it is specifically trying to tell you that these files have not been backed up successfully in the past few back up runs. For more I would contact Norton or take a look at the settings.
I never had Norton but still got the annoying "x". I had a computer probelm. MSFT Tech support help me re-installed the OS. Then the annoying "x" appear almost everywhere. I fixed most of them by re-installing affected SW/apps but four.
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Anonymous
2014-10-30T11:01:15+00:00 I've got the same issue, Windows 8.1 Lenovo T440s running Windows 8.1.
I'm running neither Carbonite nor Norton. I'm running Dropbox, but it's not set to touch my desktop. I am using Sugarsync to sync my desktop as well as a few other folders. Given the numbers JohnFox_817 provided, this means that Sugarsync is using 8 overlays? I do have my desktop synced through onedrive, does that count as part of the 7 previously mentioned for Windows or is that additional and the 7 was system?
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Anonymous
2014-08-21T16:27:06+00:00 Per Carbonite:
"Yes, we are working to a permanent solution at the moment. The thing is windows only allows 15 overlays. Windows itself used 7 of them and Drop box the latest version has an additional 7 and Carbonite has 3"