Black clock icon

[Tyler Durden]

Windows XP, SP3, IE8, Avira AntiVir. A subfolder of My
Documents, that has a lot of subfolders, suddenly appeared with a black
clock icon. According to:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/2000/Q_21587254.html

....means that the file has been archived to tape and will take a very long
time to access.

Since I don't have any tape backup and the folder is very large to move/copy
it all to another volume, how can I remove this black clock icon?

I'm very curious about this. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[SC Tom]

Windows XP, SP3, IE8, Avira AntiVir. A subfolder of My
Documents, that has a lot of subfolders, suddenly appeared with a black
clock icon. According to:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/2000/Q_21587254.html

...means that the file has been archived to tape and will take a very long
time to access.

Since I don't have any tape backup and the folder is very large to
move/copy
it all to another volume, how can I remove this black clock icon?

I'm very curious about this. Any help would be appreciated.

God, I hate sites that you have to join/pay to see the rest of the post. . .

Anyhow, can you move some of the sub-subfolders, a few at a time, to another
volume? That may free up enough resources for the clock to go away.

SC Tom

 

[Tyler Durden]

agree, they are very annoying. but in experts-exchange you just have to wait
for it to load and scroll down all the page.

already tried move many folder, without success....

 

[SC Tom]

Nah, I waited 10 minutes and nothing ever showed up except the "Start your
7-day trial to view the solution."

Sorry moving the files didn't work, thought sure that would do it. You say
it "will take a very long time to access." Does it take a long time, or is
it something you expect to happen? I haven't had that problem myself, and at
one time I had hundreds of subfolders because of photos I was working on and
sorting. Do you have a backup program scheduled to run at any time, and
that's why the clock (even though you don't have a tape drive)?

SC Tom

 

[Tyler Durden]

it does not take a long time to access files, it is as fast as before. seems
that this is an attribute called 'offline' but I could not find any info on
how to use it. also, no backup apps, to sched tasks, nothing... also the pc
does not have malware.

more info about this 'offline':
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/27/54710.aspx

 

[SC Tom]

Lots of explanations for its appearance, few resolutions. This one from '06
says to remove this key from the registry to make it go away:

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

It's probably not a fix for the problem (if there truly is one), but rather
just clears the icon. You can always export that key, delete it, then see if
anything goes awry. If it proves to be a problem, import it back in.

SC Tom

 

[Lem]

it does not take a long time to access files, it is as fast as before. seems
that this is an attribute called 'offline' but I could not find any info on
how to use it. also, no backup apps, to sched tasks, nothing... also the pc
does not have malware.

more info about this 'offline':
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/27/54710.aspx

There are a couple of threads that suggest that it's caused by bad
coding in some apps that end up setting all possible file attributes.
See, e.g.,
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/409102.html

As near as I can tell without having researched it a lot, there is no
GUI method to reset this particular file attribute. So, if this is in
fact what happened to you (and the reasoning in the thread above sounds
reasonable), your options seem to be to (1) ignore the clock icon, (2)
copy the folder to a new folder (which will *probably* work), or (3)
write some C++ code (see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365535(VS.85).aspx and even
the list there isn't a comprehensive list of file attributes).

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[Tyler Durden]

thank you, copy/move the folder is not an option (lack of sufficient space
on another volume). still looking for a solution...