Odd behaviour of Desktop shortcuts

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[ScotchJohn]

Windows 10, 21H1, OS build 19043.1083

For some time, my desktop shortcuts have behaved oddly.  In apparently random fashion, the curvy arrow shortcut arrow is replaced:

Green tick:

White cross:

“Shared” overlay:

No overlay:

Right-click “Refresh” restores the normal curvy arrow.

I had intended for some time to post here about this, but never got round to it.

That was until my shortcut icons became randomly changed.  They were all in the correct places, but the icon file in the shortcut was randomly changed.  Again, Right-click “Refresh” sets it all back to the correct icon files.

Can anyone tell me what’s going on here?  Could I, should I, be flushing an icon cache file somewhere?  Or, as it’s not doing any harm, do I just live with it?

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

• This topic was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by ScotchJohn.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by ScotchJohn. Reason: Formatting

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The green ✓ and grey X overlays indicate whether a local file/shortcut is or isn’t in sync with OneDrive while the shared overlay indicates a file/shortcut is shared and are a normal part of Windows 10.

But, since your icons themselves are randomly changing, there must be some other piece of software you have installed that’s changing them.

Some users have reported that Malwarebytes can cause this problem and using the Malwarebytes Support Tool fixed it.

• Repair Malwarebytes for Windows with the Malwarebytes Support Tool

Other users have reported that the Pale Moon browser can cause this problem but with no solution as of yet.

So basically, if you have any sort of 3rd party software installed that can control/modify your icons, it might be causing this and need to be updated/repaired.

1 user thanked author for this post.

ScotchJohn

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Thanks a lot for your reply.

I took your suggestion and downloaded the Malwarebytes repair tool and ran it.

With the random nature of the overlay and icon changes, I may take a little time to recognise any change in the behaviour that I describe, but I shall try to remember to post back in this thread.

I don’t use Pale Moon, nor, as far as I am aware, do I use anything that could modify desktop icons.

Again, thanks.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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alejr wrote:

But, since your icons themselves are randomly changing, there must be some other piece of software you have installed that’s changing them.

Some users have reported that Malwarebytes can cause this problem and using the Malwarebytes Support Tool fixed it.

Repair Malwarebytes for Windows with the Malwarebytes Support Tool
Other users have reported that the Pale Moon browser can cause this problem but with no solution as of yet.

My 21H1 shortcuts change too from green V to white X to green v…
I don’t use Malwarebytes nor Pale Moon…nor any other 3rd party tool with desktop effects.
As long that the changes doesn’t render the shortcuts inoperable I don’t care.

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The green ✓ and grey X overlays are a normal part of Windows 10.

Windows automatically updates the overlay for a particular file/shortcut to reflect its “current” OneDrive sync status as follows:

• green ✓ overlay = synced with OneDrive
• grey X overlay = not synced with OneDrive

In ScotchJohn’s case, not only were his overlays randomly changing, the actual icon files for his shortcuts were randomly changing as well.

OneDrive sync status changes wouldn’t cause that.

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alejr wrote:

Windows automatically updates the overlay for a particular file/shortcut to reflect its “current” OneDrive sync status as follows:

green ✓ overlay = synced with OneDrive
grey X overlay = not synced with OneDrive

I don’t use nor sync with OneDrive. My desktop shortcuts just changed from green v to shortcut arrow.

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A couple of days after running the Malwarebytes repair tool the behaviour that I described still occurs.  The shortcut arrow is still replaced randomly.  I have not observed the random replacement of the shortcut icon images.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Ok, here’s a couple of other methods that “might” remove the overlays

Method 1:

Open the File Explorer Options panel and select the View tab.

Scroll all the way to the bottom and uncheck Always-show-availabilty-status.

Method 2

Open regedit and got to the following key:

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

This key will show the full list of icon overlays being used by your system and may help you ID exactly what software is cause your overlays to change.

If you’re not using OneDrive, you can delete all the OneDrive# sub-keys.

BTW, Dropbox, Google Drive and several other cloud storage services will also register overlays in this key and can be deleted if you no longer use them.

Note: I’d suggest you “export” the whole ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers key before deleting any sub-keys in case you need to restore them.

Good luck!

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This is starting to ring a bell.  Here is a snip of the ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers branch:

Is Windows 10 still subject to the same limit of fifteen icon overlay identifiers that applied to Windows 7?  There, I found that Dropbox would take the first ten of these, leaving not enough for other programs.  That’s the non-techie description of what happens.  I tried to debate this with the techs at Dropbox, found them pretty unrepentant.  T***** s***, in effect.

Am I right in assuming that what I have described is caused by OneDrive and Dropbox taking, in my case, the first sixteen out of fifteen places in this branch?  Under some circumstances, and I don’t know what these might be, then, Windows 10 would have to select an overlay at random.

I do use OneDrive, and value it, but don’t care too much about Dropbox.  One solution suggested in the past was to re-order this list of icon overlays by prefixing the key with numerals, or by packing the key name with spaces.  Each fresh update of Dropbox takes their keys back to the top of the pile.

That might explain my overlay issue, but I’m still stumped on the random changes to the icon images.

 

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Not really sure whether Microsoft updated the 15 overlay limit or not in Win 10 but this 01/06/21 post on the AskWoody forum seems to indicate it’s still in place.

• onedrive availability icons

The fact those overlay keys in your registry keep changing when the S/W gets updated “might” be what’s causing your overlay issue.

As for the actual icons themselves changing, the icon cache may have gotten corrupted and needs to be completely cleared to properly restore them.

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Alex5723 wrote:

alejr wrote:

Windows automatically updates the overlay for a particular file/shortcut to reflect its “current” OneDrive sync status as follows:

green ✓ overlay = synced with OneDrive
grey X overlay = not synced with OneDrive

I don’t use nor sync with OneDrive. My desktop shortcuts just changed from green v to shortcut arrow.

Now my desktop had no overlays until a couple of minutes ago. Now out of screen sleep it has a small ‘users’ (two people) overlay. First time I have seen this.

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Alex – just think, until you started engaging with my overlays issue on Ask Woody, you had not been troubled by this problem.  What can I say?

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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ScotchJohn wrote:

Alex – just think, until you started engaging with my overlays issue on Ask Woody, you had not been troubled by this problem.  What can I say?

I am still not troubled as the shortcuts work as usual.
It is just a curious phenomenon with no logical explanation.

1 user thanked author for this post.

bashbish

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I know it has been over a year but did you ever resolve this issue ?  I have had had it for a long time. As you say Refresh of Desktop gets it back to normal until next time it happens.

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