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. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-16T02:06:56+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.

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  2. Charles Kenyon 170.9K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-15T21:46:35+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.

    You have to read through the entire thread to see. It appears this indicates a cloud file that has not been synchronized to your hard drive. See all of Diane's posts on March 2.

    If that does not help, I would suggest posting a new question to have the best change of resolving your problem, perhaps with a link to this question.

    How to Ask Questions In this Forum

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  3. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-03T06:39:07+00:00

    BTW - using that dialog is just a quick and easy way to browse the shell icons to see if its a windows icon.

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  4. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-02T20:16:05+00:00

    Are you on windows 11?

    So, it's not just Dropbox that has the icon.... the 0 bytes indicates it in not synced, that it's just the pointer (shortcut) to the file online. If you double click (and are signed into the account and online), it should download then open. If it's not opening, I would sign out of OneDrive, rename the OneDrive folder then sign back in and let it sync everything again.

    For one reason or another, windows won't / can't display the online icon - one theory I found this morning is the file attributes are corrupt, so it shows that icon. It makes some sense since only the shortcuts to the online-only files have the icon. But the attributes look fine to me and changing them did not fix the icon.

    My OneDrive files are fine - it's the dropbox one with weird icon.

    Image

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  5. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-12-17T23:06:17+00:00

    @Chitrahaas Nalla MSFT

    If the issue concerns Word and Word is being used on Windows, as long as the Windows option is selected it does NOT make any difference whether the Type selected is For home, For Business or For education as there is NO difference in the Word application.

    Those of us, who regularly provide assistance, select the "Show all" type, and bemoan the deletion of the Programming Type.

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