Creating Shortcuts in Windows
Microsoft developed Windows specifically to provide quicker access than DOS. The premise behind this idea being that I can click an icon quicker than I can type C:\folder\folder\program.exe. For the most part this sounds reasonable... (here's the but) ... BUT I'm sure the vast majority of us knows what it is like to have to open window after window because we need to run some program that happens to be buried within a dozen folders.So what am I supposed to do about that?
Well, we could just reorganize our entire hard drive... that would only take a couple weeks... Or we could use the Start Bar and some Shortcuts.Start Bar? ... Shortcuts?
Move your mouse cursor to the bottom left corner of your monitor over the word "start." Click the start once with the left mouse button. You should now see something that resembles a new window. Each icon in that window is a shortcut. A short cut is basically a small file either in your start bar or lying around your desktop. Clicking on a shortcut runs a program that could actually be in an entirely different directory. So if you have a program you use a lot i.e.: Telnet but you don't like clicking through a bunch a windows to find it, the best answer is to make a shortcut for it. In fact, I have quite a few shortcuts on my desktop.Won't that take up a lot of space?
Not really. To put it in perspective, a shortcut averages about 250 bytes in size. There are 1024 bytes in a single kilobyte and, in turn, 1024 kilobytes in a single megabyte. A 3.5" disk is about 1.44 megabytes. So you could easily fit 5,000 shortcuts on a single 3.5" disk.Let's make a shortcut!
In this example I'm going to explain how to make a shortcut for Telnet. The procedure is the same for any program.The first thing you need to do is find is the location of the program you want to make a shortcut for. You might have to spend some time searching through files to do this. It might help to use the FIND option in your computer. But I already know Telnet's location is C:\windows\telnet.exe so we don't have to worry about looking for it. Now you need to decide if you want to place your shortcut in the start bar or on your desktop. To place a shortcut on your desktop begin by clicking the right mouse button. A menu should appear and one of the options should be "new". When you highlight this option a second menu will appear. The second option should be "shortcut". Move your cursor over this option and left click. A wizard should now appear on your screen. The first thing it asks for is the "command line". This is the location of whatever you would like to make a shortcut to. Since I already know my command line i can type it into the field. But if you do not know where your program is you can find it by clicking the "Browse" button. This will bring up a second window which has the contents of your harddrive. Simply click through the different folders as you normally would until you find the program you would like to make a shortcut to. Once you find the program double click it, and now its "command line" should automatically appear in the field for you. Once you have done this click the "next" button. The wizard will no ask you for a name for your new shortcut. You can make this anything you like. For my shortcut i will simply name it "Telnet", a short descriptive name always works well. Once you have typed the shortcut name click the "finish" button. If you look on your desktop there should now be an icon with the name that you gave and a small arrow in the lower left hand corner. This is your new shortcut. Now the only thing you need to do to start the program is double click the shortcut.