Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
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.
Article C2335 - April 19, 2005 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
August 5, 2010 3:47 PM
I am having trouble creating a shortcut icon from any website, could there be a setting in my computer that I need to change? I know how to create these shortcut, I do it all the time, however on my Mom's computer it won't let me create a shortcut from any website. It tells me there is no program association and I need to go into the folders options under control panel. I've looked all around there and can't see my solution.
November 17, 2010 4:39 PM
All the desktop and taskbar shortcuts which I get this way look the same, i.e. with the firefox icon. Is there a way to get the individual icon of the web site to come up, so I can tell which is which without hovering over them all to find the name ? Thanks
June 3, 2011 10:52 AM
I am trying to create an icon on my desktop for hotmail. Reading your article, I started by right-clicking on my desktop and I get nothing. I have Windows Vista and IE8. I am totally uptodate with Windows Updates. I have not installed IE9. Is there another way to get an icon for Hotmail on my desktop, please? Thanks
June 3, 2011 2:12 PM
@ Velma
Try opening My Computer and navigate to the Desktop (Usually the Desktop link is near the top left of the My Computer screen) from there you can then right click and follow the procedure in the article. That might work.
July 26, 2012 11:18 AM
Thanks a lot! This worked like a charm. I am not a very skilled computer user, and your directions were easy to follow and now I have a new Clark Howard icon on my computer.