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Today, mysteriously, the desktop icons on my windows 10 machine have gray "x" and green checkboxes as an overlay. The state of the overlay seems to flip randomly from time to time.

WTF?

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  • It has been several days since we heard from you. Have you made any progress?
    – Run5k
    Nov 11, 2016 at 16:58
  • no progress. The icons went through several more states, and have now stabalized back to "normal", but I have no clue what was happening or why.
    – ddyer
    Nov 11, 2016 at 18:39
  • But, can you please elaborate? Based upon what I posted within any answer, do you have Norton software installed on that machine?
    – Run5k
    Nov 11, 2016 at 18:47
  • No norton software.
    – ddyer
    Nov 12, 2016 at 19:44
  • If that's the case, it sound like the most likely cause is OneDrive synchronization. The next time it happens, try the fix-action recommended within the question that I referenced: right-click on an empty area of your desktop and select Refresh to see if that eliminates the problem.
    – Run5k
    Nov 12, 2016 at 22:30

2 Answers 2

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Part of your question can probably be answered here:

Windows 10 Green Checks?

In other words, people who previously saw the green check boxes attributed them to either Microsoft OneDrive or locally installed Norton software.

As far as each gray "X" is concerned, there is a distinct possibility that they are symptomatic of the same root cause. From what I have seen, you can alleviate them by doing the following:

  1. Right-click on the desktop shortcut or file.
  2. Select Open with...
  3. Choose your preferred option, check the box to Always use this app to open .??? files
  4. Click the OK button

(Source)

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One drive is adding it. It is simply because after an update one Drive decided to sync your desktop with other User folder like documents, pictures public etc.

So this is a backup overlay similar to what Dropbox used to add to the files in the folders being synced.

The only way to remove it is to to go onedrive setting or right click on desktop and click "choose folders to sync" and uncheck your desktop.

I kept it on I don't mind my desktop files getting synced, I have to just get used to the green check marks.

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