Adding Desktop Shortcuts
The desktop, of course, is always a handy place to put a shortcut. To add a shortcut to a file, folder, or
other location to your Windows desktop, use Windows Explorer to get to the original folder or file icon to
which you want to create a shortcut. To create a shortcut to My Pictures or My Music, for example, open
My Documents to view the original icons. To create a shortcut to Shared Documents or a particular
drive on your computer, open My Computer.
When you can see the icon to which you want to create a shortcut, make sure the Explorer window is
small enough so that you can at least see some portion of the desktop. Then, using the secondary
(right) mouse button, drag the icon out to the desktop and drop it there. From the menu that appears,
choose Create Shortcuts Here. A new icon titled “Shortcut to” followed by the original icon name
appears. The new name is already selected, so you can enter a new name if you like. For example, I
usually delete the “Shortcut to” part of the name, because I can already tell the item is a shortcut by the
little curved arrow.

Tip You can rename a shortcut icon at any time by right-clicking the icon and choosing
Rename.
Remember, you can always tidy the desktop icons by right-clicking the desktop and choosing Arrange
Icons By Name.
As is typical of Windows, you can create desktop shortcuts in other ways as well. And as usual,
choosing one method or another is simply a matter of personal preference or convenience. For
instance, you can right-click the desktop and choose New Shortcut. A Create Shortcut Wizard
appears, with a Browse button that you can use to locate the item to which you want to create the
shortcut. Within Explorer, you can right-click on any icon and choose Send To Desktop (create
shortcut).