To create a shortcut on the Desktop or in an Windows Explorer window the more formal way, follow these steps:

1.  Right-click open space on the Desktop or in an Windows Explorer window and choose New  Shortcut from the context menu. Alternatively, choose File   New   Shortcut. Windows displays the Create Shortcut Wizard .

2.  Enter the location of the file or folder to which you want to create the shortcut. Either type it in, or click the Browse button, use the resulting Browse for Files or Folders dialog box to navigate to and select the file or folder, and then click the OK button.

3.  Click the Next button. The wizard displays the What Would You Like to Name the Shortcut? screen.

4.  Type the name that you want the shortcut to have. This can be just about anything, so make it descriptive and memorable.

5.  Click the Finish button. The wizard closes and creates the shortcut.

Setting Properties for a Shortcut

To set properties for a shortcut, right-click it, and then and choose Properties from the context menu. Windows displays the Properties dialog box. For a shortcut to a document, this dialog box contains four pages:

a General page, a Shortcut page, a Security page, and a Details page. For a shortcut to a program, this dialog box contains a Compatibility page as well.

Target text box This contains the path and filename of the target file or folder. To open an Windows Explorer window showing the target in its folder, click the Open File Location button.

Start In text box This text box contains the path to the target file. You may need to change this setting occasionally, but not regularly.

Shortcut Key text box To set a shortcut key to run the shortcut, click in this text box and press the letter you want to use. By default, Windows creates a shortcut using the Ctrl key and the Alt key, so if you press P, it creates the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+P. You can override this default by press- ing Ctrl+Shift or Alt+Shift as you enter the letter.

Run drop-down list As discussed in the section “Specifying the Size at Which a Program Runs” in Article 4, you can use this drop-down list to make the program or the program asso- ciated with the file run minimized, maximized, or in a “normal” window.

Comment text box In this text box, you can enter a comment associated with the shortcut.

Change Icon button To change the icon displayed for the shortcut, click this button and use the Change Icon dialog box to select an icon you like. As mentioned in Article 3, SHELL32.DLL and MORICONS.DLL both in the WindowsSystem32 folder contain a selection of icons. When you’ve finished adjusting the shortcut, click the OK button. Windows closes the Properties dialog box and applies your changes.

Setting Advanced Properties for a Shortcut

You can set two advanced properties for shortcuts that lead to program files. To do so, click the Advanced button on the Shortcut page of the Properties dialog box for the shortcut. Windows displays the Advanced Properties dialog box .

Run as Administrator check box    Select this check box to have Windows run this program using an Administrator account. Running a program as Administrator is sometimes necessary when the program requires administrator-level permission but the user has only a Standard account. When you double-click the shortcut, you must authenticate yourself to User Account Control. A standard user may need to have an administrator enter a password.

Run in Separate Memory Space check box    You can change this setting only for 16-bit programs, which you can choose not to run in a separate memory space. Windows always runs all 32-bit programs in separate memory spaces to prevent them from corrupting each other. By default, Windows runs all 16-bit programs in separate memory spaces, but you may some- times need to run two or more 16-bit programs in the same memory space so that they can communicate directly with each other for example, via DDE, Dynamic Data Exchange. Click the OK button. Windows closes the Advanced Properties dialog box and applies the settings you chose.