Desktop files have weird exclamation points on them?

I am running windows 7 home premium 64 bit

I am pretty cautious about where i go and what i download online for i really think this is not a virus of some sort.

To make sure i ran scans already ( mcafee, malwarebytes, superantispyware, roguekiller, hitmanpro) they all come back clean. I even ran scans in safe mode to be sure.

This problem arised randomly while i had an msn webpage open and i was typing something in a word document. My computer was freezing taking forever for the keys i typed to show up and eventually the windows explorer crashed about 4 times.

3 out of the 4 times all the desktop items would disappear ( even my windows tab at the bottom) displaying ONLY my wallpaper and nothing else. Bringing up the task manager would show my desktop items again.

Since my pc was still rather sluggish i restarted it. Upon restart i noticed it was working fine but then i noticed these red exclamation marks on my desktop files. Thinking it was a virus i ran several scans but everything came back clean. The exclamation marks only seem to appear in my desktop folders and if i create a new txt, folder or file in my desktop that too gets an exclamation mark on it.

Since i ran scans and restarted me pc another 4 times i can safely assume these wont just go away and they are rather annoying to have. The files and applications seem to work fine regardless of those red exclamation points.

4 days before this i got my 2nd or 3rd BSOD ever again on cold boot up, i only saw the blue screen but i couldn't see what it said since my pc started fast. Thinking it was something to do with my hard drive going bad i checked it and it shows up good and healthy.

Also this is not the first time windows explorer has crashed it does this once every 3 weeks orso on boot up usually, however i never have gotten those exclamation points.

Any help will be appreciated

 

Go to Start -> Search and type in "eventvwr" (without the qoutes) and launch it from the results pane. Go to the dates/times of the events in question (if you can remember them and double click on the event or right click on it and select Properties. This will give an expanded description of the event.

As far as the BSODs:

Go to Start -> Computer and right click on Computer and select Properties. Click on System Protection on the left. Click on the Advanced Tab. In the Startup and Recovery area click on Settings. Uncheck Automatically Restart. In the Write debugging information dropdown, change it to Small memory dump (64KB) and uncheck Overwrite any existing file.

You've had several BSODs and each one may have been caused by something different. Letting the system write new files which each BSOD will give the experts more to go on. Turning off Automatic Restart will put the Stop Error codes on screen so you can record them. The minidumps are kept in the C:\WINDOWS\minidump folder. If you could attach one or more of the minidumps as ZIP archives in your next post(s) it would help as well. Any information you could find in Eventvwr may also help.

 

I am attaching the events that i believe happened within the crash time frames and a jpg picture of how the exclamation point looks like. That same exclamation point is basically on everything displayed on my desktop ( and only my desktop files).