Files have a brown box on their icon and dont open in Windows 11

Anonymous
2022-02-12T17:29:29+00:00

What is going on here? There is no information anywhere so it obviously isnt a problem for everyone.

Most of my files stored on Dropbox now have a small brown file box icon on the lower left corner of the main icon for all MS Office files. They open perfectly well on the phone and a laptop running Windows 10 but not on my laptop running Windows 11.

I get an error message saying the program cant open it because the file is unsupported or may be corrupt.

Why the **** do they release an OS that doesn't work with their own programs??

Please help,

Thanks

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,526 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-08-14T15:49:23+00:00

    You need to sign in to onedrive (or whatever cloud service they are in) before you can delete the files.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-08-18T17:07:24+00:00

    I am having the same problem but not with a third-party program. All of a sudden, all of my SharePoint files are not only no longer syncing but they are not accessible. All the icons have the brown box on them. My OneDrive files continue to sync w/o issue. But I can no longer access any of the files stored in the various SharePoint doc libraries that were syncing. Syncing to SharePoint not only stopped but all synced libraries were removed. It's as if I had never synced any sharepoint doc library. I think this is a Windows 11 problem, although this happened to me even though I hadn't done a recent update and hadn't even restarted my computer.

    Edition Windows 11 Pro

    Version 22H2

    Installed on ‎5/‎19/‎2022

    OS build 22622.575

    Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22634.1000.0

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-08-21T22:12:33+00:00

    didn't work for me. Nor did the 'delete & restore' suggestion elsewhere.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-08-22T20:37:24+00:00

    Penny - WOOT, WOOT! THIS FIXED IT FOR ME TOO! After an hour of research, I did what you did - simply typed OneDrive into the Windows 11 search field and clicked Open. Boom - brown boxes gone an files are accessible.

    Thank you Penny!

    Tom

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-09-07T10:44:04+00:00

    it seems doen'y work on my computer

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