Disrupted Desktop

[Guest]

Yesterday I had a nice clean Desktop.

Today, nearly all the Desktop icons have Shortcut overlay on them (a black
arrow inside a small white square in the lower left quadrandt).

I did nothing, but start the computer. Haven't installed any new hardware
or software for months. Wasn't doing anything at the time, just sitting and
waiting.

This is the aspect of Windows that annoys me the most. I didn't authorize
any changes to my Destop, nor was I even consulted!

How do I get my nice clean Desktop back?

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Hi Bryan,

Shortcuts (*.lnk and *.url) files do have the overlay icon, and it's
perfectly normal. OTOH, if the special folders such as Recycle Bin, My
Computer have the overlay icon, then something is wrong. For the latter
case, see if a System Restore rollback fixes the problem.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Yesterday I had a nice clean Desktop.

Today, nearly all the Desktop icons have Shortcut overlay on them (a black
arrow inside a small white square in the lower left quadrandt).

I did nothing, but start the computer. Haven't installed any new hardware
or software for months. Wasn't doing anything at the time, just sitting and
waiting.

This is the aspect of Windows that annoys me the most. I didn't authorize
any changes to my Destop, nor was I even consulted!

How do I get my nice clean Desktop back?