This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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!
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.
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.
I had it on all icons initially.
Then whoever you bought Windows from did it. Like HP pre-installs all the HP photo junk on their computers, whatever they put there.
If it was part of Windows directly, every person on earth would see it initially, because we are all using the same initial setup. Since I can walk down to my hardware lab, put in a Windows 8.1 CD-ROM and install it without seeing a gray X, I know automatically and absolutely that it is not part of the Windows install that does it.
I'm sorry you aren't finding what is causing your gray X's to show up. I would help if you'd like to visit my services and hire me, or you can talk to a local professional, BestBuy Geek Squad, or whomever you prefer. It won't take much looking to find what software is drawing the icons.
Multiple people have it with multiple different software configurations. Only common denominator is Microsoft, so maybe it's the way Microsoft works with that software or vice versa?
