Shortcuts are a personal thing. Some people love a clean, uncluttered desktop, while others litter their screen with zillions of shortcuts. A lot of folks don’t do much with the shortcuts on their desktop. They just leave the ones that various software programs install, so it’s easy to end up with a bunch of useless shortcuts for stuff you don’t use.
However, it’s really easy to create and delete shortcuts. You can create them in a number of ways. One way to do it is using Windows Explorer. Choose Start||Programs|Windows Explorer to open the program. Find a file, click (and hold) the right mouse button while you drag the file to your desktop. When you release the mouse button choose Create Shortcut(s) Here from the pop-up menu.
If you want to create a shortcut to your printer or other device, you need to use Control Panel. Choose Start|Settings|Control Panel. Then you basically do the same thing. For example, to put a printer on the desktop, double-click the Printers folder. Then right-click an icon and drag it to the desktop. When you release the mouse button, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here.
Shortcuts end up with rather long names because Windows adds “Shortcut to…” at the beginning. To me, all this extra text is redundant and annoying. (I know it’s a shortcut because the icon has a tiny arrow on it.) So if you want to change the shortcut name, just right-click the icon, and choose Rename from the pop-up menu. The name is highlighted, and you just enter a new name.
Deleting a shortcut is even easier. Click the shortcut and press the Delete key on your keyboard. Or you can click and drag it to the Recycle Bin. One thing to keep in mind is that a shortcut is just a pointer to the actual file or program on your hard disk. If you delete a shortcut, nothing happens to the file on your system; it’s still there.
In Windows 98, if you have lots of programs on your Start menu that you wish were shortcuts on your desktop, you can just click and drag them over to your desktop. And while you are in the Start menu, you can also rearrange items by dragging them to a new location, or delete items by dragging them to the Recycle Bin. There are a few default items you can’t change, but for the most part, you can get rid of a lot of clutter this way.