Quick question

Searching didn't help. Simple issue, I think.

So out of nowhere I noticed all of the 'shortcuts' on my desktop, had little orange locks on them, right where the arrow would be, that identifies it as a shortcut.

The only thing I did was install Teamspeak 3 and Xfire, I removed both, no change. So I deleted all of the shortcuts, and replaced them, and it seems back to normal.

My isssue is I'd like to know what would cause this, and what the locks are for. I've never seen anything like this on anything other than a folder, like for sharing/security.

This just happens to be one of those things I haven't come across, I have gaps in my knowledge. I'm curious if some type of change was made to the system as a whole.

My only idea so far is this: When using Xfire, it scans and populates a list of all the games on my system, and attemps to have permission to 'support' the games, as in managing updates and launching them, during this process, it required elevated permission, which I allowed, I didn't see it as a problem, I planned to try out the program. I have a feeling this caused it. As far as I can tell, nothing else is affected.

I think just knowing what these little locks represent will help reveal exactly how it happened, and if there's any other changes to the system, such as a global setting of some kind.

I'm very picky and prefer to know exactly what's going on, I'm sure I'm not the only one. I have a feeling it's something simple and not really an issue. Thanks for any input, forgive the length, I like to be clear.

Under normal circumstances, the lock icon represents that the file Owner is SYSTEM.

I suspect that your icon cache was corrupted.

Yeah, I think Xfire caused it. It only affected my game shortcuts, I think because my desktop is non-private.

If I have further issues, should I load a restore point, or is there an easier way to deal with this? I'm the only user, and Admin.

No evidence is presented in this thread that a Restore is mandated. That being said, if you were to perform a Restore, you should do it now rather than later (since the 'offending' apps have been removed).

Well there's no issues anywhere else, it was only the desktop. So I feel safe that everything is fine. I've added the shortcuts again and rebooted, ran a few games, etc etc, all seems fine.

I prefer to avoid restores, but you're right if I were to it would be best to do so now. I'll pass on that, I'm nearly certain it was limited to the desktop. Thanks for the tips.