Anyone know how to get rid of these dots?!?!?

Seeing the the dots on non-selected icons is dependant on the actual icon size. If you have your desktop icons set larger than the icon actually is, then you're going to see the lines.

ie If the actual icon itself is only 32x32, but your desktop is set to 64x64, then lines will be visible. If you shrink all desktop icons to 32x32 then the lines will disappear.

If you like large icons , but don't like the dots, you can replace the icon with a more scalable one.

rkseagle said:

Here's an idea, right click on the desktop, then find the selection to turn off viewing desktop icons - problem solved.

That's not actually helping LOL. Turning desktop icons off kind of takes us back to DOS in the sense that you need to navigate to where your program is then run it.

Oh....I still miss the days of MSDOS :'(

How strange, i've just checked it again and it's stopped doing it. No dots at all now

Ok I think I fixed it. I used regedit to change this key to 0. And no more outlines on my Desktop

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewAlphaSele ct]
"DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001

I should add. I didn't restart , I just logged of and back on again for setting to take effect.

Be sure and back up your registry or even just that key if you want to change it back.

Edit: Ok Nevermind as others have stated above. The symptom comes and goes. I guess my little reg edit did nothing. As ten minuites later the outlines came back.

Temporary Fix: Just hit F5 or refresh the desktop