When I create a shortcut on the desktop, it has an arrow in the bottom left
corner of the desktop icon. How can I get rid of that arrow? Thank you.
In this excerpt from
Answercast #74, I look at the importance of the “shortcut arrow” that
appears on desktop icons indicating that it is not the program itself, just a
link to use the program.
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Desktop icons with shortcut arrows
Well, first, I will caution you that the shortcut arrow is
an important indicator to help people realize that they are acting on a
“shortcut” to the program rather than the program itself.
You haven’t indicated what version of Windows you’re running, but I will
start you with the Windows XP solution, which is a utility called TweakUI. In fact, I have a link to it on a
couple of articles on my site.
Adjust Windows XP settings
TweakUI allows you to adjust a number of settings in the user interface of
Windows XP. One setting is the presence of that little arrow icon (or sub-icon
if you will). You can actually change it to:
-
Not be there at all;
-
Or to be kind of semi-transparent (so it’s still there; it’s just not as
prominent.)
As it turns out, when I run Windows XP, I usually set it to be somewhat less
“in your face;” a bit more transparent so that I can actually still see the
full icon of the shortcut underneath.
I still leave it there. To me, it feels important to understand whether I’m
acting on a program itself or a shortcut to the program. But I’ll leave that
distinction to you.
(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)
Next from Answercast 74 – How do I
record a streaming video?
I was wondering about this. Some may consider that arrow a distraction. But the way I do things I don’t give half a hoot if it’s shortcut or the actual program as long as I can click on it and get things done.
What’s the difference if it works and why do you consider it important? Is there a reason beyond personal preference? You know a LOT more about computers than I do.
@Snert,
I think it’s important to know if it’s a shortcut or not. Someday you might be cleaning up your desktop. It’s very safe to delete shortcuts because that won’t delete the program or any files. If you don’t have an easy way to distinguish you might end up actually deleting the real thing.
Right click the short cut icon. Click shortcut tab.
Click ‘find target’ which will be the highlighted exe file.
Copy and paste the exe file to desktop and the short cut arrow will not appear.Then right click the original shortcut & delete.
Jp
1. If the original poster follows your suggestion, it is extremely important that he perform a copy, and not a move! Otherwise deleting that icon will delete the program! However, the issue is quite possibly moot, because…
2. This suggestion stands a really excellent chance of not working at all, because you’ll be executing the program from somewhere other than its working directory, making any needed support files (DLL’s, INI’s, etc.) inaccessible.
@Johnpro2
Making a copy of the .exe program isn’t a feasible solution. A shortcut is only 4KB, whereas a .exe file can be several megabytes, which you would have residing in 2 places. It’s also possible that the .exe file won’t run from the desktop or anywhere other than its original location, as it wouldn’t be in the same folders as some of the link libraries and other support files it has to interact with.
Please disregard my previous post. The method described often does not work correctly.
Unfortunately to my knowledge my post can’t be edited or deleted from here.
Jp
right click and rename it with just the program name.
@Ramesh
That’s useful for removing the “Shortcut to” portion of the link, but the arrow would still remain.
I’ve used TweakUI for many years and like it. Does Microsoft have something similar for Windows 7? I’m leery about 3rd party programs which want to tweak everything in the registry.
05-Dec-2012