Files and folders are often in the most inconvenient places—particularly in Windows 2000 Pro, where many documents you might need are several levels down in the folder structure, or even on another computer.
Shortcuts are very small files that act as pointers to other icons; when you double-click the shortcut icon, the original disk, folder, file, or program opens (Figure 5-9). You can also set up a keystroke for a shortcut icon, so that, in effect, you can open any program or document just by pressing a certain key combination.
Figure 5-9. You can tell a desktop shortcut apart by the tiny arrow "badge" on its icon, shown here at the top left of its Properties dialog box. The Properties dialog box for a shortcut also tells you which actual file or folder this one "points" to. Inset: The Run drop-down menu lets you control how the window opens when you double-click the shortcut icon.
Shortcuts provide quick access to things you use a lot; because you can make as many shortcuts of a file as you want, and put them anywhere on your PC, you can effectively keep an important program or document in more than one folder. Just create a shortcut of each to leave on the desktop in plain sight. Or drag their icons onto the Start button or the Quick Launch toolbar (see Section 4.3.2), which also works by creating shortcuts. In fact, everything listed in the Start→Programs menu is also a shortcut; the My Documents folder on the desktop is a shortcut, too (to the actual My Documents folder).
Tip
Resist the confusion that may arise from the Microsoft term shortcut, which refers to one of these duplicate-icon pointers, and shortcut menu, the context-sensitive menu that appears when you right-click almost anything in Windows. The shortcut menu has nothing to do with the shortcut icons feature; maybe that's why it's sometimes called the context menu.)
To create a shortcut, you can use any of these methods:
Right-drag an icon from its current location (Windows Explorer, a folder window, or even the Search window described on Section 3.6) to the desktop. When you release the mouse button, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here from the menu that appears.
If you're not in the mood for using a shortcut menu, you can also left-drag an icon while pressing Ctrl and Shift. A shortcut appears the instant you release the mouse button.
Right-click the icon and select Create Shortcut from the shortcut menu. A shortcut to the icon you clicked appears in the same folder. You can then move the shortcut by dragging it into a new window, or by right-clicking it and choosing Cut from the shortcut menu. Then right-click where you want the shortcut to be (such as a different window) and choose Paste.
If the original icon isn't handy or you don't want to go find it, you can right-click the desktop and select New→Shortcut. When the Create Shortcut dialog box appears, type its path (see page 32), if you know it, or click the Browse button to search your computer for the icon you want. Click Next, accept or change the name for the shortcut, and click Finish. The shortcut appears on your desktop.
You can rename or delete a shortcut just as you'd delete any icon, as described earlier in this chapter. Neither deleting nor renaming a shortcut affects the file it points to.
The point of shortcuts is to save time and energy. Merely placing a bunch of shortcuts on your desktop is only the tip of the iceberg; here are several other ways shortcuts can be useful.
Having your favorite programs listed in the Start→Programs menu is fairly convenient, but not as convenient as having frequently used programs right at the top of the Start menu. To put one there, just drag a shortcut (from your desktop or from an open folder window) directly onto the Start-menu button. From now on, when you open the Start button, the program will be instantly available. (See Section 3.10 for more on editing the Start menu.)
Disk drives. Right-click a disk drive in the Windows Explorer or My Computer (see Section 5.1.1) and drag it to the desktop to create a shortcut to the drive. When you double-click the shortcut icon, you'll see the disk's contents almost instantly—much faster than having to open the Explorer or My Computer window.
Other computers. You can also create shortcuts to other computers—or even to individual files on them. The other computer can be on your network, or can even be a computer you connect to using Dial-Up Networking (see Chapter 14).
Use the My Network Places icon (see page Section 13.1.1) to find the computer or file you want, right-drag it to your desktop (or another folder), and choose Create Shortcut(s) Here from the shortcut menu.
To locate the original icon from which a shortcut was made, right-click the shortcut icon and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. As shown in Figure 5-9, the resulting box shows you where to find the "real" icon. Click Find Target; Windows opens the folder containing the original file.
Even after reading all of this gushing prose about the virtues of shortcuts, efficiency experts may still remain skeptical. Sure, shortcuts let you put favored icons everywhere you want them to be, such as your Start menu, Quick Launch toolbar, the desktop, and so on. But they still require clicking to open, and that still means taking your hands off the keyboard, and that, if you're a touch typist, means slowing down.
But lurking within the Shortcut Properties dialog box (Figure 5-9) is a feature with immense ramifications: the Shortcut Key box. By clicking here and then pressing a key combination, you can assign a personalized keystroke for the shortcut's file, program, folder, printer, networked computer, or disk. Thereafter, you can summon the corresponding window to your screen, no matter what you're doing on the PC, by pressing that simple keystroke.
Two rules apply as you're trying to choose keystrokes to open your favorite icons:
They can't incorporate the Backspace, Delete, Esc, Print Screen, or Tab keys, or the Space bar.
There are no one- or two-key combinations available here. Your combination must include either Ctrl+Alt or Ctrl+Shift and another key.
All of this is the operating system's attempt to prevent you from inadvertently duplicating one of the built-in Windows keyboard shortcuts, thoroughly confusing both you and your computer.