An icon overlay for indicating that processing is occurring. When a user makes a selection to expand a node (e.g., a node in a tree view), the processing of the enumeration may take some time. To provide an indication to a user that processing is occurring, an icon overlay is animated over the expanding node's icon. In one embodiment, the overlay is a magnifying glass that is animated to move between three different positions that are changed on a timer. Once the processing is complete, the icon overlay is removed, and the sub-items for the node are inserted into the tree. By using an overlay, the view of the expanding node's icon is preserved as an important part of identifying its type, e.g., network domain, network computer, file system folder, etc. Multiple icon overlays may be provided for multiple expanding nodes at the same time.