{"id":34908,"date":"2024-09-09T00:04:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T22:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/159.69.82.204\/win\/?p=34908"},"modified":"2024-09-06T17:29:32","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T15:29:32","slug":"windows-desktop-icons-are-displayed-with-a-gray-x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2024\/09\/09\/windows-desktop-icons-are-displayed-with-a-gray-x\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows: Desktop icons are displayed with a gray X"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Windows\"[German<\/a>]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.<\/p>\n

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Desktop icons are overlaid with a gray X<\/h2>\n

\"\"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.<\/p>\n

\"Desktop-Icon<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

My own tests don't lead anywhere<\/h2>\n

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<\/a>). The magnifying glass system is displayed by the screen magnifier – which I could definitely rule out as the cause in my case.<\/p>\n

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 Verkn\u00fcpfungssymbole fehlerhaft mit Icon \u00fcberlagert<\/a>, as I quickly found another solution.<\/p>\n

Getting rid of the gray X<\/h2>\n

A quick search on the Internet revealed a few sources. The Microsoft Answers forum post here<\/a> from 2014 describes the problem, but does not help. The Microsoft Answers forum post here<\/a> from 2018 also described the problem, but was not as helpful. In some posts, OneDrive was suspected as the cause.<\/p>\n

On Dr. Windows, there is this German post<\/a> 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?<\/a> This article describes the various overlay icons that OneDrive displays over desktop icons or files. And there is the comment:<\/p>\n

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Gray X on desktop icons<\/h4>\n

\"Gray<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n