Summary: Adding shortcuts to your desktop for programs, documents or even specific web pages is very easy.
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Sure! For the most part the desktop just holds shortcuts, and pretty much any shortcut will do.
And there's several ways to create them.
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Right click on your desktop, and select "New Shortcut". Enter http://hotmail.com as the location of the item, hit next, give it a reasonable name (like "Hotmail"), and you're done.
It's just that easy.
If you like, you can then add that shortcut to your start menu as well. Click and hold on the desktop icon. Now drag it over the Start button. Don't let go, wait and the start menu will pop up. Drag the icon to a position on the menu and release. You could also hold it over a sub menu, wait for that to pop out, and then release in the position you would like it to live on that sub menu.
The reverse works as well... click and hold on a start menu item, drag it to your desktop and release. The shortcut will be removed from the menu and appear on your desktop. If you want the shortcut to remain in both places, hold down the CTRL key before you drop the icon on the desktop.
Shortcuts can be created for programs, as you probably already know, and URLs, as we just showed. You can also create shortcuts for any document or file that Windows knows how to handle: for example ".doc" files, ".mp3" files and others.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - Is it possible to create an icon on the Desktop for IE without re-installing?
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Ask Leo! - How can I get Windows Explorer to default to open on a directory of my choosing?
Article C2335 - April 19, 2005
what if i want to create a shortcut to a web page, but opened with a browser that is not my default web browser? I want to open a web page with IE, my main web browser is mozilla firefox
Posted by: Jorge at January 27, 2009 6:09 PMCan I create a web address shortcut on IE7 like I can on Mozilla?
Posted by: rep1 at February 1, 2009 5:20 AMHow can I create a desktop icon from a picture or clipart and assign it a url link. It must also be transferable to another computer by email so that it still opens the webpage on the second computer. Thanks! EEG
Posted by: eeg at March 22, 2009 12:14 PMI get how to change an icon but how do you keep the logo of the original address on tyour desktop. It's on my toolbar but when I copy or drag it coverts to explorer icon. Ihave VIsta
Posted by: kentito at May 2, 2009 1:15 PMSomeone showed me once that you can create an ikon to any direction in the address bar by simply "grabbing" the little ikon in front of it and dragging it to the desktop. I use it all the time now.
Posted by: Patricia Neyman at July 3, 2009 4:38 PM