Lost my Shortcut Arrow
Lost my Shortcut Arrow: a reader asks…
I’ve been using Windows 10 for awhile now and just noticed that icons on my desktop no longer show the little arrow that indicates they are shortcuts. I don’t know what happened, but is there a way I can get that indicator back?
Microsoft windows uses icons – small pictures that represent files or programs. Sometimes the actual file is located in one place on your hard drive and a shortcut is shown on your desktop. That shortcut icon is made up of 2 elements: 1) the same icon as the file or program, and 2) a shortcut overlay which is placed on top of the file or program icon at the lower-left corner. Sometimes Microsoft Windows can ‘forget’ where that overlay file is, or the file can be corrupted, or some other minor problem with Windows can show shortcut icons without the overlay.
There are several ways to get it back, but the easiest is to simply apply a registry patch. For Windows 10 users, download this registry file from our friends at tenforums.com (link is https://www.tenforums.com/attachments/tutorials/29074d1438911215-shortcut-arrow-icon-change-remove-restore-windows-10-a-restore_default_shortcut_arrow.reg) to your desktop. Once downloaded, double-click the Restore_default_shortcut_arrow.reg icon to add that code to your Windows Registry. Once done, that will restore your standard shortcut icon style. Tenforums.com’s webpage is at https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/8974-shortcut-arrow-icon-change-remove-restore-windows-10-a.html and includes hacks to remove, restore or change the shortcut overlay icon.
Other ways including rebuilding a broken icon cache, and running a Windows utility to fix system problems (DISM). For the latter, I will write a separate article about using DISM because it is a tool that can be used to solve a number of Windows problems. For rebuilding your broken icon cache, the process is a bit complicated, but our friends at HowtoGeek.com have published a guide, see it at https://www.howtogeek.com/232779/how-to-rebuild-a-broken-icon-cache-in-windows-10/.
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Author: Chris Gardner
Your Tech Coach at PosiTek.net
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