Windows 10: Physical drive suddenly has "shortcut" badge

Starting about a week ago, my secondary drive SSD, X: has acquired a "shortcut" badge.About the same time, iCloud Drive started behaving very strangely, continuously trying to sync files that are already sync'ed. The logs stored by iCloudDrive contain millions literally of entries of the formPath doesn't exist: X:\Cloud\iCloudDrive\Shared\Photos\2022\20220710-MetoliusRiver\JPEG-Large\20220710-91741.jpgI'm not 100% sure the shortcut designation is the cause of the iCloud issue. The drive appears normal not a shortcut in its "Properties" dialog and also in diskmgmt.mscHow do I proceed?

:)

 

Badges on folder shortcuts change or disappear mysteriously

Hi there,

I'm using Windows 10 in a work domain, and I have a few folder shortcuts on my desktop. Some of them are shortcuts to folders on my C drive and some are shortcuts to network folders. I've noticed that the normal blue arrow badge that indicates a folder is a shortcut is sometimes replaced with other badges, such as a grey X, a graphic of two people (like that seen on shared folders), or even no badge at all. I'd include a screenshot to prove I'm not crazy, but the image uploader seems to be broken.

The grey X would normally make me think the folder was unavailable, but that is not the case. And the graphic of two people is odd since most of my folder shortcuts are not shared with anyone else, and even then, not through any locally set up Folder Sharing, but through NTFS permissions to network folders located on a server. The missing badge is the oddest of all. I can see how that could create confusion about where files are actually stored, especially if the folder shortcut did not have "- Shortcut" at the end, such as with network folders or renamed folder shortcuts.

I searched online for any discussion of changing badges on folder shortcuts, but did not find anything related. Any ideas why this is happening?

Thanks!

Lora

 

Badges on folder shortcuts change or disappear mysteriously

Hi

Welcome to Microsoft community.

The issue you're experiencing could be due to several reasons including, but not limited to, network connectivity issues, file sync issues, or system glitches. Here's what each badge means and what you can try to fix them:

1. Grey X Badge: This usually indicates that the folder is unavailable, which can happen if you're temporarily disconnected from the network. Even if you can access the folder, this badge might still appear if there was a temporary disconnection when the desktop was last refreshed. Try manually refreshing your desktop by right-clicking an empty space and selecting 'Refresh'.
   
2. Two People Badge: This typically indicates a shared folder. It's possible that this badge is showing up due to certain system or network settings even if the folder isn't currently shared. You may want to check the sharing settings of these folders.
   
3. Missing Badge: This could be a system glitch. Try deleting and recreating the shortcut to see if the correct badge appears.
   
4. Clear Icon Cache: Sometimes, the icon cache can become corrupted and display incorrect icons. You can clear the icon cache by navigating to 'C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local' in File Explorer, enabling 'Hidden items' under the 'View' tab, and deleting the file named 'IconCache.db'. After doing this, restart your computer.
   
5. System File Checker (SFC): Run the SFC tool to check for and repair corrupted system files. Open Command Prompt as an administrator, type 'sfc /scannow', and press Enter.
   

If none of these solutions work, there might be a more complex issue at play. In that case, you might want to reach out to your IT department for further assistance. Remember to back up any important data before making major changes to your system.

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

 

Optical Drive Issue

Hi Jerry, you're welcome.

Here's mine after I rt clk'd on my Documents Folder like you show in Scrsht 11:




I'd like to wait until you reply to my question in Scrsht 12, if it is a remnant of the process try deleting the one on the dsktp and see if the one in send to also disappears. If it stays in send to, test it, and if you're still having problems I'd suggest you could go back to: Option One: To Add or Remove Items in Send To context menu for Your Account (current user) and do Step 3 to remove it and start over using Step 4 but be very careful of your steps in creating the shortcut and be sure you d&d that shortcut to the send to part of the address.

I'm busy today and I probably won't be back until the evening.