Dotted Box around Desktop Icons

Airbot said:

I just got this yesterday for the first time, and it was right after I changed my desktop background to a different picture. Refresh didn't work, so I changed my background image to something different, used ccleaners' cleaner tab, and it cleared it for me. Might try rebuilding the icon cache after it happens.

I have experienced this also, then it seemed like it had something to do with
the fact that the wallpaper was a .PNG

I don't think the wallpaper has anything to do with the problem. I've only ever used the standard Windows supplied "theme" wallpapers.

Something very odd just happened to my hardware. I did the rebuild icon cache thing and restarted Windows. When restarting, my BIOS was reset to default settings!?!? This has only rarely happened and usually only after a rather hard Windows crash. So I don't know why it happened this time.

This resetting BIOS is a real problem because my computer won't run well at all if the default settings are used. The CPU and memory speeds are all wrong and I loose 2 of my harddisks among other problems.

I happen to have a Gigabyte P965-DS3 motherboard which is known to have odd habits, one of which is to shut down at restart time for no good reason and to occasionally reset the BIOS. Gigabyte says this shutdown behavior is normal but the BIOS should not be automatically reset unless some undesirable condition is detected.

I suppose the question is whether deleting the icon cache is somehow flagged by Windows as some kind fatal error and then somehow telling the BIOS to reset.

This was probably a one time event, I will post in one of the hardware threads if I continue to have problems. I just thought I would make note of the problem here since it might be related.

try this

Border around icons on desktop

steps in french.

Solution here: Dotted Border Help

its a bug. i believe its left over legacy crap.



if you want it to go back to normal you can
- log off and log back in.
- kill explorer.exe and restart it.
- restart comp.

how to recreate the problem.
-open a window
-hit "show desktop"
-active 3d flip
- "show desktop" from 3d flip
- bam, ugly dotted lines.

think thats quirky?

Try going to "Uninstall or change a program" from "My Computer"
Then open "Uninstall or change a program" from the "Control Panel"
Compare the two.

notice something wrong with one of the windows?
Thats right an useless "Show preview panel" from the "My Computer" shortcut.

its mindblowing. "MS Windows, expect the unexpected." not in a good way.

da13371ama described the problem exactly.

I never noticed the dotted line until I read this thread. Actually I tried to see if I just didn't notice it before. So I minimized everything and well no dotted lines. Just the translucent blue rectangle.

However when someone mentioned clicked the Aero Peek corner, I clicked it a few times and viola the dots appeared.

It's not a problem, it's the way Windows is designed.

However, IMHO, it is totally redundant when used with the Aero 7 theme (was my whole point). It is purely for keyboard navigation (using the keyboard arrow keys) - that's when it will appear, when you press any key on the keyboard - pressing a letter will switch through the icons with the same starting letter in their name, using cursor keys will navigate.

The Aero box is for mouse positioning. You'll see you can actually have an Aero box around one icon and a dotted border around another icon, which in my opinion (once again) is counter intuitive and bloody dangerous to say the least (which item gets deleted if you press delete for example?)

If you press a key on the keyboard, you can get rid of the dotted border by pressing Tab or Ctrl-Escape.

If you can't then go into control panel, ease of access center, click make the keyboard easier to use and untick "Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys".

It sounds wrong (and it is, because pressing Alt will still show your underlined shortcuts) but now the dotted box will act normally and disappear when it should!

I think it's totally wrong Microsoft. It should BE GONE. Once again, I say look to the Mac for a decent interface scheme (preferably try copying it).

Running MS Media Center (not just Media Player) seems to turn the dotted line back on without doing anything that has to do with the desktop/keyboard focus.

Ctrl-Esc, Alt-Esc and Tab does NOT fix the problem, it just changes the desktop focus. Clicking on the desktop again turns the dotted line back on.

I think the only sure solution is log-off/log-on, kill explorer or reboot. Only these will completely restart the desktop.

this thing probably isnt a bug.

it seems that any kind of keyboard command for the desktop;
Windows key, arrows keys, Window key + Tab, Window key + g, etc
will bring up the dotted line.

I dont see how these dotted lines are useful at all, they are just plain ugly.
There already a aero theme focus box, no point of having the dotted line box overlay it...

it only shows up on desktop icons and nowhere else, leads me to believe that its probably left over legacy crap.

A way to get rid of it once and for all

How to Remove the Annoying Focus Rectangle in Windows? - Tweaking with Vishal

run one of the .exe thats right for your windows
then restart.

no more dotted lines.