red and blue dots on the icons on my desktop

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Guest

My Sony Vaio laptop came with Vista Home Premium already loaded. I installed
Office 2007, and uninstalled Home and Student version. Since then, red and
blue dots appeared on the left bottom corner on the icons on my desktop.
Microsoft and Sony did not solve the problem. Why it happened and how can I
get rid of them?
Please help.
Thanks,
Ayla
 
My Sony Vaio laptop came with Vista Home Premium already loaded. I installed
Office 2007, and uninstalled Home and Student version. Since then, red and
blue dots appeared on the left bottom corner on the icons on my desktop.
Microsoft and Sony did not solve the problem. Why it happened and how can I
get rid of them?
Click to expand...

Ayla (of the cave bear clan? :-),

Most desktop icons have a little white square in the lower left
corner with a little black arrow pointing up and right. Are
these little arrows still present or have they perhaps been
replaced with the red and blue dots?

Does the recycle bin also have these dots? I suspect not.

I'm asking because it is conceivable that that little sub-icon
has been damaged. Not sure if that would lead us anywhere, but
it may still be good to know.

Hans-Georg
 
Hans-Georg,
Thanks for the answer. Some of the shortcuts are covered with those dots,
some of them are not, such as; My Documents folder does not have the dot.
But, some of the folders in that folder have. Recyle Bin, My Computer,
Control Panel, Easy-Photo, Skype do not have dots.
Ayla
 
Use desktop properties and increase the size of the icons.
You will probably find that these are not dots, but small Microsoft emblems
indicating the file is running in compatibility mode. (Or something akin.)
 
If it's an "icon overlay", you may have a program creating it. I couldn't
find it "standard" as part of Windows.
Are the "dots" on all icons, just shortcuts, just folders?
Did they remain when you made them larger?

These overlays are typically invoked by the programs running them and
usually appear only in the tray:
Microsoft versions (there are plenty more by third party software)
Red dot - Stopped
Green dot - Started
Circled red down arrow - Disconnected
Circled grey down arrow - Offline
Yellow triangle with exclamation - Warning
Red X - Error
Red exclamation mark - Needs attention

The following overlays apply mostly to shortcuts and not always to their
associated file:
(Folders will show them even if not a shortcut.)

White background, black arrow - Typical shortcut
Green dot with small yellow arrows - Offline file setup for synchronization
Two tiny blue arrows circling - Win2000 Offline file overlay
Grey X - Offline file placeholder, not cached
UAC Shield - File requires elevation to run
One little face - Shared file, specific
Two little faces - Shared file, everyone

Are there more? Most likely.
 
Mark,

Those are on some folders, files, some program shortcuts, not all. For
example, Outlook 2007 has red dot, all the others are blue. My Document does
not have, but when I open My Documents, all the files and folders in it have.
I had taken the picture of my desktop. I hope there is a way to send the
picture to you.

Thanks, Ayla
 
Ayla said:
Mark,

Those are on some folders, files, some program shortcuts, not all. For
example, Outlook 2007 has red dot, all the others are blue. My Document
does
not have, but when I open My Documents, all the files and folders in it
have.
I had taken the picture of my desktop. I hope there is a way to send the
picture to you.
Click to expand...

If you access the newsgroup through a real newsreader, like Vista's
replacement for Outlook Express, then you can attach things to a post and
others can get those attachments. To minimize the size of a screen capture,
edit it with MSPaint and select only a small area around the icon, copy it
and paste it into a new MSPaint window. Save it as .png, then add .txt to
the file name before attaching it to your post. .png is a non-lossy
compressed format that is very efficient for typical stuff in a window.
Adding the .txt extension makes it less likely to be rejected by virus
scanners.

-Paul Randall
 
Paul,
Thank you for your help. I edited my desktop picture, and saved as txt.png.
as you recommended. Now, how can I attach to my post? Thanks, Ayla
 
Hi Ayla
In Vista's Windows Mail, right click Microsoft Communities(in the left
pane), and choose Newsgroups....
This should pop up a window titled Newsgroups Subscriptions. In the box
near the top under the words Display newsgroups that contain: type the
following: installation_
In the All tab just below what you typed, one item should show up, this
newsgroup,
microsoft.public.windows.vista.installation_setup
Left click that newsgroup to highlight it, and click the Subscribe button to
the right, then the OK button near the bottom.
Now this newsgroup should show up below Microsoft Communities in the left
pane of Windows Mail.
Stretch the Mail window wide enough to include the Sent column. Click the
word Send in the column heading, and a little triangle pointing up or down
should show up. Click again if necessary to make the arrow point down.
Scroll down the list to 10/31/2007. Post if you have problems finding your
message. Your original post should be the seventh one down on that date.
Click the plus box to the left of the title, to expand the list of messages
in response to your initial message.
This message will probably be the only one in this thread with a paper clip
symbol to the left of the title, indicating an attachment. I have attached
a picture of an icon from my desktop that I produce with MSPaint, saving it
as Icon.png, then adding .txt to the name, so it is now Icon.png.txt.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need more assistance.

-Paul Randall
 
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