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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!
Thank you. But, as I mentioned in my earlier post, when I used the tool the overlay changed from gray X's to the curved arrow (shortcut indicator). See picture above.
If the file is not genuinely a shortcut, that type of behavior would mean that the overlay icon is referencing a non-existing icon file. You can change the reference in the registry or by disabling additional overlay handlers in AutoRuns, but the best solution really would be to create a user account and drag the files to the new profile and delete the one with the invalid settings.
Sorry, I can’t help you any further than this. Somehow your settings don’t stick—whether it is due to the administer actions or the policy. At least you know what CAUSES the X’s and how to make them go away. The next problem is how to get the settings to stick. The fact that the O/S allows you to make the changes tells me it’s not due to something the administrator did. Good luck.
That's what I thought also. But by merely unchecking the "Hidden Files" box WITH NO OTHER CHANGES - the Xs went away on my desktop. YMMV.
