Putting an Icon on the Desktop from the Start Menu

Do you find yourself constantly starting the same programme time after time from the Start button and the Programmes Menu?

If so you can make things much more convenient fo r yourself by putting an icon for that regularly-used programme on the desktop. Here's how:-

1) With the computer running and the desktop visible, place the mouse pointer on the Start button then navigate to the programme you want to start, in the usual way.
2) When you have the mouse pointer over the name of the programme you want to start, don't use the left mouse button. Instead, hold the right mouse button down. Keep holding it down and drag the mouse till it's over a blank area of the desktop.

3) Release the right mouse button and, from the menu which appears, left click on the entry "create shortcut here".

4) Now you have a new shortcut on your desktop to the programme you want to open. Any time you want to open this programme just select the desktop icon and tap the Enter key (or double-click the icon).

There's an even quicker way of starting a favourite programme, even when you can't see the desktop - watch for this in the next newsletter.

John Selby, technical bloke

First Printed in SNN Newsletter April 2002.