[German]Another little tip for Windows users regarding "desktop icons suddenly changed". It often happens that Windows suddenly overlays all or some desktop icons with a gray X symbol. Then good advice is expensive, because what is the cause and how do you get rid of it? After it happened to me, I take up the topic in a blog post and show you what you can do.
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Desktop icons are overlaid with a gray X
It was kind of crazy: I had booted a Windows 10 2019 Enterprise IoT from sleep mode and logged in to the user account. While working, I noticed that several desktop icons with shortcuts to applications were suddenly overlaid with a gray X icon. The following screenshot shows exactly what this is about.
At this point, good advice was expensive and the question "what's wrong with Windows again" arose. Above all, I noticed that there were only a few of these desktop icons.
My own tests don't lead anywhere
Deep in the back of my mind was a case where my desktop icons were overlaid with a magnifying glass and a blue double-headed arrow (see Windows 10/11: Desktop icons suddenly overlaid with a magnifying glass and a blue double arrow). The magnifying glass system is displayed by the screen magnifier – which I could definitely rule out as the cause in my case.
And with regard to the blue double arrow in the desktop icon, I still had the "related to compression" in the back of my mind. But a quick check of the properties of the shortcut or the associated application files revealed that no compression was activated there. So I was able to sort that out. I also didn't work through the explanations in my German blog post Verknüpfungssymbole fehlerhaft mit Icon überlagert, as I quickly found another solution.
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Getting rid of the gray X
A quick search on the Internet revealed a few sources. The Microsoft Answers forum post here from 2014 describes the problem, but does not help. The Microsoft Answers forum post here from 2018 also described the problem, but was not as helpful. In some posts, OneDrive was suspected as the cause.
On Dr. Windows, there is this German post with a screenshot showing the gray X over desktop icons. The tip there was: "Shut down once and then restart", and the mishap is fixed. But the reference to OneDrive helped – although I don't have OneDrive configured on my system, I came across the Microsoft support article What do the OneDrive icons mean? This article describes the various overlay icons that OneDrive displays over desktop icons or files. And there is the comment:
Gray X on desktop icons
This is not a OneDrive icon, but a corrupted Windows shortcut icon. If you see a gray X over your Windows Desktop shortcuts, try these tips:
- Right-click on your Desktop and select Refresh.
- Uninstall any backup applications that are not longer used. Restart your computer after each uninstallation.
Claimed that it was not a OneDrive icon, but a broken Windows shortcut icon. Microsoft gave the tip to simply rebuild the desktop via refresh (works via context menu) – or to uninstall the "no longer used backup application". I don't have a backup application installed, so I had to try the tip with the desktop refresh. And oh wonder, the gray X icons were gone again. Something in the shell had probably got stuck and the shortcuts could not be evaluated, the icons were marked with a gray X as broken. The refresh then fixed this.
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