Office documents appear with an orange/yellow box in front of them. They won't open

Question

I recently upgraded to Windows 11 pro. I reviewing my locally stored documents, several of them have an altered ICON with what looks like a file storage box to the left of the standard application ICON. None of these files will open by double-clicking. I chatted with MS support this morning and the agent couldn't figure it out either. Fortunately, most of these documents are also on OneDrive, but I have >100 with this issue and it will take time to find and restore a working copy.

Has anyone seen this?

Thanks,

Tom

[Moved from Word / For business / Windows]

Answer 1

Wow! Insane! I read through this entire 4-page thread and THERE IS NO CLEAR ANSWER GIVEN on how to resolve this issue. Unbelievable. I hate seeing stuff like "send us the file" or "try changing the registry"... holy freak!!!! Can someone from MS please just tell us what is the problem and what button to push to fix it???? Seriously - MS should know what that stupid little box is there and how to get rid of it. I was using a 2014 laptop with windows 10 and office 2013 and everything worked fine. I then upgrade to 365 and start monthly payments because i essentially have to and everything goes to heck. Shouldn't MS have figured out how to make things work in the last 8 years???? So frustrating. WHAT'S THE ANSWER??? I CAN'T ACCESS MY WORD DOCS AND I WANT SOMEONE TO TELL ME HOW TO FIX IT!!! preferably in 20 words or less and without having to go into the registry and muck around where I don't belong.

Answer 2

i found the solution for it. it is because your files are locked with OneDrive personal vault. sign in to your OneDrive and unlock the personal vault. as soon as the files start synching with OneDrive you will be able to access and open them.

Answer 3

Doug:

Thanks for your note. Unfortunately, since the files won't actually open, I cannot attach them (only an image of them). Fortunately, I do have them on OneDrive, so I'm systematically matching file names/extensions and downloading them onto my desktop.

I was hoping someone on the MS Office team would recognize this image and comment on same.

Tom

Answer 4

That is Dropbox's "smart sync" icon - where only a pointer to the file is synced. When you open the file, it will download.

Answer 5

That screenshot is from my dropbox and the online-only smart sync files are the only ones with this (annoying) icon on all my hard drives... so you tell me if I'm wrong...

Your first link is the program app icons - that is the icon in the left side of the explorer window in my screenshots, the app in the tray, and on the taskbar when I open preferences.

The sync icons link is the icons on dropbox tray icon as files sync -

The file cabinet icons are on the shortcuts that sync down - they are fairly new, maybe 4 -6 months or so. They used to be like OneDrive and show the sync status via icons- now only the app has the sync status. The folders and files are either stored locally (no icon) or not (the file cabinet).

When I right-click on the CSV file in my screenshot and check the Smart Sync settings, it is online only. (My menu is a mile long or I'd include the full menu)

These are local - no icons.