"Ghost" icon on desktop - huh?

[John]

When I have an Excel (or Word) file open on my PC computer, a greyed-out
Excel icon appears on my desktop and stays there until I close the Excel
file. Underneath the greyed-out icon, the characters "~$" appear. What is
this? And how do I eliminate it from my desktop?

- Using Office 2007 for the PC

 

[John in Wembley]

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 07:45:01 -0800, John

I think its the temp file created while the file is open.
is the original file on your desktop?

 

[Dave Peterson]

I've never seen excel do this.

But when you open a file in MSWord, MSWord will create a temporary file in the
same folder.

This temporary file will be named based on the original file, but the first two
characters will be replaced with ~$

I don't think you can change this behavior in MSWord. But as you noted, this
file is "greyed-out". The file is marked Hidden (rightclick on it and choose
properties. Then check on the General Tab.)

You can choose to see files marked hidden or have them hidden.

Open Windows Explorer
Tools|Folder Options|View Tab
Scroll down a bit and you'll see a couple of option buttons. Click on the "Do
not show hidden files and folders"

Or you could just ignore that file. It should disappear when you close that
file (in MSWord). If it doesn't, you can delete it yourself.