Windows 10 Question: Different check mark fields on icons on the desktop

[berkeman]

TL;DR Summary

Windows 10 desktop icon's super secret checkbox query...

Sorry if this was already addressed in the other Windows 10 thread. What do the different check mark fields (round and square) mean in the icons on my new Windows 10 laptop's desktop? My Google search only turned up results on "green checkmarks" that related to Office 365 synching? Thanks
<< screenshot of the checkboxes in an icon is missing, because the Snapshot tool doesn't seem to work anymore in Windows 10... >>

 

[berkeman]

Lordy, after jumping through a few McGyver hoops, here is a screenshot of a typical desktop icon with the mystery checkmarks...

 

[DaveC426913]

I don't think the round checkmark is active. I think it's a badge - probably saying 'this app is safe' or some such.

 

[DavidSnider]

The top left checkmark is so you can cherry-pick multiple icons using only the mouse instead of having to use keyboard shortcuts. The bottom left checkmark is Microsoft one-drive sync status.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

I am working on Windows 10 for quite some time now (on my new new laptop), but haven't come across those checkmarks. It seems what @DavidSnider said is correct. I have neither of them enabled, so perhaps I don't see them.

<< screenshot of the checkboxes in an icon is missing, because the Snapshot tool doesn't seem to work anymore in Windows 10... >>

If you are trying to use Snipping Tool, then it's depreciated. Use Snip and Sketch instead. If you haven't changed the default settings, you will find an icon in the notifications panel (on taskbar):

Otherwise you can always find it from search.

 

[berkeman]

If you are trying to use Snipping Tool, then it's depreciated.

Sigh. I only recently discovered that tool, and have used it extensively since.

Use Snip and Sketch instead.

Thanks for that. I'll try that when I get home tonight.

And thanks for all of the responses. I partially understand them, and will read more about them.

 

[DaveC426913]

The bottom left checkmark is Microsoft one-drive sync status.

Duh. I should have recognified the icon, having seen it for the last year.

I hate One Drive. Has cost me no end of wasted time, recreating files that have been lost because it plays fast & loose with file locations (actual versus virtual).

 

[Mark44]

I hate One Drive. Has cost me no end of wasted time, recreating files that have been lost because it plays fast & loose with file locations (actual versus virtual).

OneDrive is OK for storing pictures and the like, but I agree with you that it is very annoying at times. When I write code on my Win10 machine, it stores those projects on OneDrive as well as on the hard drive of the machine itself. It has been more work than necessary to find the projects I'm looking for, on my computer, rather than the ones saved on OneDrive. Also, the projects are Visual Studio C++ and assembly projects, so they are all megabytes in size with all the extra stuff that is stored, and I hate to fill up OneDrive with a bunch of unnecessary stuff.

 

[DaveC426913]

it stores those projects on OneDrive as well as on the hard drive of the machine itself. It has been more work than necessary to find the projects I'm looking for, on my computer, rather than the ones saved on OneDrive.

:sniff: You have no idea how much you have validated me. :sobs into a hankie:

 

[sysprog]

Program sets such as 'OneDrive', and 'Windows Update', and lots of other stuff, are disabled on all of my machines that run any versions of Windows. If I want to store something at a remote location, I'll explicitly transmit it to the remote location. I don't really hate Windows, but I do really hate the presumptuous paternalism of MS. No, it's not the OS provider's or any other program provider's machine; it's my machine. Don't try to make my machine do what you want in preference to doing what I want.

On any and all of my computing machines, I positively want, not merely would like, programs to not jump in helpfully when I haven't requested help, unless all indications are that I might be doing something destructive or something else that might matter that I maybe didn't really want to do. If I issue a command to destroy something permanently, I don't get annoyed at the "Are you sure?", but I hate it when, for example, I'm trying to correct a typo in an SMS message on my phone before I send the message, and the phone tries to make me select from a list of suggested corrections instead of just putting the cursor where I by-touch-indicated that I want it, so I can retype things myself.

I hate anything running on my machine that over-rides something I specified explicitly with something that some other programmer thought was implicit, or that some marketer thought I should want, or that someone wants me to put up with because he thinks it might benefit his group of beneficiaries.

I want my machine to do exactly and only what I command it to do. I'm preferentially an imperative language programmer; machine instructions are close enough for me to what the machine actually does; beyond the assembler, and a few imperative high level languages, and some obedient scripting languages, to me that other stuff is obfuscation. Maybe that's a bias left over from the days when computers did all and only what the user directed them do; not instead what someone who, presumably, presumed himself to be smarter than the user, thought the user must have meant. Perhaps that's because 'back in the day' the user and the programmer were apt to be one and the same.

 

[DaveC426913]

No, it's not the OS provider's or any other program provider's machine; it's my machine.

MS is catering to a corporate office demo, where tools for auto-managing of groups of people who are not in very tight with their machines.
Would you be happier with Linux perhaps?

 

[pbuk]

When I write code on my Win10 machine, it stores those projects on OneDrive as well as on the hard drive of the machine itself.

If this code is in a version control system then it is not going to work well with OneDrive or any other automatic backup service - switching branches can change many files causing unnecessary network traffic. I suggest either turning syncing off for your code project directories or do all coding under a separate folder e.g. C:\Projects. Use Bitbucket or GitHub etc. for backup.

 

[phinds]

... I do really hate the presumptuous paternalism of MS.

Exactly !
I don't CARE if they are pandering to people who are not technologically adept (and in fact from a marketing viewpoint, I understand why they do it), they should still give the rest of the the option of not experiencing the BS.

 

[sysprog]

MS is catering to a corporate office demo, where tools for auto-managing of groups of people who are not in very tight with their machines.
Would you be happier with Linux perhaps?

Although that for me depends mainly on whom I'm working with or for, I think that some Linux-based systems today are such that some implementations of them are very feasible and viable competitors to any Windows implementations; at present I still use Windows more than I use Linux.