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Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons completely

Posted August 2002 by Steve Sinchak

To remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons in any type of document:

a) Perform instructions described under 'Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons'. For your convenience, steps 1 to 3 are reported here.

b) Perform instructions described under 'Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons (2)'. For your convenience, steps 4 and 5 are reported here.

c) And finally, do the same with conferencelink, docshortcut, internetshortcut and wshfile.

So, here is a summary of all actions:

  1. Start regedit.

  2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile

  3. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

  4. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile

  5. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

  6. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ConferenceLink

  7. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

  8. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DocShortCut

  9. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.
    10.Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut

  10. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

  11. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WSHFile

  12. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

  13. Close regedit.

Logoff and... Enjoy!

Note : Please note that in some cases deactivating the arrow for *.LNK files might lead to duplicate items in the Explorer Context menu.

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