Shortcuts! Shortcuts! Shortcuts! They're all over the place! You may even have a few that simply appeared "accidentally" one day, and you're not sure if you should delete them or not. Good Grief! What if you delete one and the computer goes up in SMOKE!?

Shortcuts are disposable. They are as easy to create as they are to delete. They aren't an actual program. They are just a picture (icon) you can use to double-click to start a program, or open a document, or picture, whatever you want them to do. This keeps you from having to click the Start button and wade through all the programs, looking for just the right one. You can create shortcuts for often used programs and files.

The only thing you need to do is make sure it is indeed a shortcut. You should be able to tell by the tiny little arrow on the lower left side of the picture (icon). You can also right-click on it and choose Properties, to see if it is a shortcut or not. If it's not, be careful with it. If it is...have a ball! Give your nerves a rest, because you won't hurt a thing.

One way to create a shortcut is to right-click on any empty area of your desktop and choose New. Then left-click on Shortcut. You will see a dialog box (a nice term for more choices). Click the Browse button and use those famous File Manager skills of yours to navigate to the program or file you want to create a shortcut for. When you find the program.exe file or document you want, left-click on it once, then click the Open button. You should then see your Shortcut box again with the name of the file or program in the box. Click Next, fill in a name for your little treasure, click Finish, and you're through!

Another way to create a shortcut for your desktop is to start looking in your Explorer or My Computer in the first place, find the file you want, right-click on it, and while holding down your right mouse button, drag that file straight to an empty spot on your desktop. When you let go of your mouse button, you will be faced with several choices, one of which will be to Create Shortcut.

Renaming Shortcuts are as easy as right-clicking on them and choosing the Rename option. Another way to rename a shortcut, or any other file, is to click on it twice. I'm not referring to a double-click, just two slow clicks on a file or shortcut will cause the name to be highlighted, with a box around it. Any typing you do while it looks like this will replace the name with what you type. You slower double-clickers may have thought you were doing something wrong. Isn't it nice to know you weren't? You were just telling Windows 95 to do something different with the icon.

One of the many little ways Windows has to protect us from ourselves shows up when you try to drag a file with your left mouse button to a spot on your desktop. If it has .exe at the end of the file name, it will automatically create a shortcut for you on the desktop. There won't be an option to copy or move the file. This prevents accidental moving of crucial system files. Any other file will automatically be Copied to your desktop if you use the left mouse button to drag it. This can use a lot of unnecessary disk space, with identical files being in two different places. Use the right mouse button and choose the Create Shortcut option instead. That little Shortcut doesn't use any space to speak of, and it won't hurt a thing if it gets broken, bruised, or accidentally moved. You can always make another one!

Got questions?
Search mrswizard.com and compuquicktips.com with Google!

mrswizard.com compuquicktips.com