Managing Shortcuts of Your Windows Operating System

A shortcut is a link to any item that is accessible on your computer or on a network, such as a program, file, folder, disk drive, web page, printer or another computer. You can place shortcuts in areas like on the desktop, on the Start menu, or in specific folders.

Creating Shortcuts on the Desktop

You can place a shortcut on the desktop by using the following steps:

1. Select the folder or program from a drive in the Windows Explorer.
2. Select Create Shortcut from the shortcut menu that appears on right clicking on the selected file or folder. The following figure shows the shortcut menu:
3. Select Create Shortcut option. The shortcut is created.
4. Drag the shortcut to the Desktop icon in Windows Explorer.

When you delete a shortcut, the original file or folder is not deleted. It remains in the original location.

Pinning Shortcuts to the Start Menu

The list of programs in the Start menu is divided into two parts:

v     List above the separator line contains program items that are available for use always and are known as pinned items list.

v     Programs below the separator line are programs that are frequently used.

As can be observed from the above figure, the pinned item list appears above the separator line. In the frequently used items that appear below the separator line, the list keeps changing according to the usage. The list has a default number of programs and when that number is exceeded, programs that you have not used recently are replaced by ones that you are using frequently.

You can move programs to the pinned item list in the Start menu with the following steps:

1. Select an excitable program from the Program Files folder or any other folder that contains the executable file for the required program.
2. Right click with your mouse button on the program you want to add to the pinned items. The following menu is displayed:
3. Select the Pin to Start Menu option from the shortcut menu.

The program is displayed in the pinned items list above the separator line in the Start menu. You can change the order of programs in the pinned list by dragging a program to the required positing. The Unpin From Start Menu option in the shortcut menu will remove the program from the Start menu.