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Where did these icons come from?

12 years ago

Turned on my desktop computer today and on the desktop there were these strange icons down the left side. It is an HP computer and I do have an HP Envy 120 printer attached which was used the last time I used the computer several days ago. If I try to move or delete them I get a message saying a program or Windows may not work properly if I do. They are as follows:

(2) desktop.ini - hpothb07.dat - hpothbo7.tif - thumbs.db

They is so strange and the icon are rather opaque with gears or plain .... Anyone have any ideas?

(HP desktop running W8.1, 6G ram)

BTW; Whats with all these adds and news feeds coming from in my preview?

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Comments (9)

emma
12 years ago
That happens to me sometimes and I don't know what causes it. The things that appear are things from a misc folder I keep on my desktop for things I am working with. The white pages on the side are usually documents that I have put in there. Try opening one of them and see if you recognize it.
anne_ct
12 years ago
Rather than trying to "delete" them...right click on them and "close" the folders. That should remove the cloudy white image without causing any problems to the program.

Anne
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msm84
Original Author
12 years ago
Did some research and figured out where they came from! Somehow I had made a couple of changes to my folder view and I do not remember when. I'll just chalk it up to old age *lol*

Anyway I went back into "Control Panel", "Appearence and personalization", and "Folder options" and hit the "Restore Defaults" and all those mystery folders went away!!

BTW: I do not use Google so lets just say I did my "Research" using Start Page!! Best place to "start" when wanting to find an answer to something.

Hummmm...Still don't know where all these adds are coming from because I have "AddBlock" installed.

Here is a link that might be useful: Start Page
grandms
12 years ago
When I clicked your link for Start Page, it opened and has the notation "enhanced by Google", so it appears you do use Google. :-)
msm84
Original Author
12 years ago
Its only "enhanced" by Google, but not actually Google. A group out of the Netherlands runs StartPage and they seem to be alot less into tracking your every move and selling it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I trust them more then Google for sure.
Elmer J Fudd
12 years ago
"Maybe I'm wrong"

"Wrong" may not be the best way to say it, "needlessly concerned" might be better.

No one is tracking "you" unless your activities in life run afoul of the law. If they do, merely anonymizing your internet searches won't accomplish much.
msm84
Original Author
12 years ago
snidely I really appreciate the fact that this site does not track me like Google does and when you use Google the ads they feed you are related to every search you have made! It has NOTHING to do with my "activities in life running afoul of the law"! Maybe privacy isn't important to you, but it is to me......
Elmer J Fudd
12 years ago
Unless you're using a VPN service, all of your internet activity is visible and immediately available to many through several sources, including your ISP.

What you're doing is simply sidestepping market research and ad placement that would derive from search activity, but probably not that which derives from your website activity. If you think that accomplishes something then by all means be happy.
msm84
Original Author
12 years ago
I'm not here to get into a debate with you about privacy 'snidley', but as I said before; "I trust StartPage" over any of the other search engines! Its plain and simple and not covered with ads and popups and I personally perfer that. Its another reason I run Web of Trust and AdBlock on all of my computers! The rest of the internet I'm very careful about where I go and what links I click.

You might want to check out this link about StartPage too:

Here is a link that might be useful: StartPage Info

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