Office documents appear with an orange/yellow box in front of them. They won't open

Anonymous
2021-12-15T15:12:22+00:00

I recently upgraded to Windows 11 pro. I reviewing my locally stored documents, several of them have an altered ICON with what looks like a file storage box to the left of the standard application ICON. None of these files will open by double-clicking. I chatted with MS support this morning and the agent couldn't figure it out either. Fortunately, most of these documents are also on OneDrive, but I have >100 with this issue and it will take time to find and restore a working copy.

Has anyone seen this?

Thanks,

Tom

[Moved from Word / For business / Windows]

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Charles Kenyon 170.9K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-16T10:45:48+00:00

    I have the same issue, but luckily not as many files. It does not really matter to me what the icon looks like or came from, rather how do I open my file(s) now? It is since the upgrade to Windows 11. It is definitely the same icon - word with a small brown box overlay in the left bottom corner. Again, how to get into my file please. Thank you.

    what happens when you try to o pen the messages?

    Are you signed into the cloud service they are stored in? The messages are online-only, so you do need to be signed into the service that synced them, to your computer.

    Messages?

    Files?

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-03-15T21:14:02+00:00

    I have the same issue, but luckily not as many files. It does not really matter to me what the icon looks like or came from, rather how do I open my file(s) now? It is since the upgrade to Windows 11. It is definitely the same icon - word with a small brown box overlay in the left bottom corner. Again, how to get into my file please. Thank you.

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  3. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-03T03:06:26+00:00

    We can't set an overlay - but it can be done using code. Shortcut arrows, or the shield (for requires UAC elevation), for example. Compressed and encrypted attributes also have icons.

    In addition to the few that Microsoft uses, 3rd parties can set overlays in the registry - but only the first 15 on the list are used. Dropbox is in positions 24 to 30 on my list - OneDrive has the first 7 spots.

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

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  4. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-03T02:31:59+00:00

    Are you syncing full files or online only (Files on Demand in OneDrive-speak)?

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-03-02T23:11:22+00:00

    That is what I thought.

    .

    So it would not be something simple or automatic for Windows to overlay this small box icon over file default icon. The file type icon would have to be changed as a unit, ie the file default icon is changed because the file type has been redirected to DropBox (or OneDrive)

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