I don’t like the start screen and want to launch programs like Skype from Desktop shortcuts, like in earlier Windows versions. But how do I add desktop shortcuts in Windows 10?
My initial reaction to your question was “it’s easy, just right click on the program icon and choose “Create Shortcut”, but upon trying to do it myself, turn out that it’s nowhere near that easy. In fact, it’s clear from figuring out a solution that Microsoft really, really wants you to get used to the Start screen or the Win10.1 Start menu, not create Desktop shortcuts. But if you prefer apps to live on your Desktop as they have for the entire history of Microsoft Windows, I got your back.
However, be warned: for this particular solution you’re going to be doing a wee bit of Windows hacking – sort of – and launching a view that isn’t usually part of a user’s account setup or configuration. I’ll step you through the process, though, so no worries.
Let’s get started. The logical place to put this feature would be on the context menu you get when you right click on a program or app on the Start menu:
No such luck. You can pin the app to your Start tiles or, if you right click on the icon when it’s running, pin it to the TaskBar, but to create a Desktop Shortcut? For that we’re going to need to get to the Windows command line.
In the search box, enter “run“:
There ya go, click or tap to choose the Desktop app “Run”, as highlighted above.
It launches a small box without much in the way of suggestions on how to use it. What you’ll want to do is type in – exactly as shown here – the sequence “shell:AppsFolder“. Make sure you have no space after the colon. It’ll look like this:
Looks exactly like what I show? Great.
Click on “OK to open up that particular view of your Windows 10 system:
So many programs, so little clue about them in Windows 10. You can delete from this point, but I will warn you that using Uninstall from the Settings is a much smarter and safer strategy.
Find the particular program you want to drop on your desktop with a shortcut, like Skype, and right click. Here’s what you’ll see:
There’s that pesky option! Yay! Click on “Create shortcut“, as highlighted above.
It’ll generate an error message, which is fine:
In fact, that’s exactly what you want to do! Click “Yes” to proceed and a shortcut for your favorite program will instantly appear on your Windows 10 desktop, ready to click and use:
It is, however, a whole lot of work to create these desktop shortcuts, so this might be a page worth bookmarking for future reference. But now you know the Windows expert solution for creating program desktop shortcuts in Microsoft Windows 10!
While you’re here, I invite you to check out the extensive Windows help on the site too. Thanks!
Why not just use IE to create the short cut?
Hi there,
There is a reason why MS doesn’t want you to short the programs to desktop, it slows down the windows startup process. I have Windows 10 on one computer, but still use Windows 7 on my main computer. When I installed the W10 I also tried to speedup the startup of W7 and found that there were too many shortcuts on the desktop.
I do still make desktop shortcuts now and then, but I keep it to a minimum and only shortcut projects I’m working on at that time. When done I delete the shortcut.
All I’m suggesting is don’t overfill your desktop with shortcuts that sit there unused for month’s or even years. Keep it tidy and your start-up will stay reasonable.
Thought worth mentioning.
Interesting, but there’s no reason what you say should be true: A shortcut is no different from an “alias” on a Mac or Linux system, say, and all of them are basically just ignored by the file system until you touch them. Double click and the shortcut is mapped to the original file, but bootup doesn’t do any sort of check, which you could test by creating a shortcut to a program, deleting the original program, then rebooting. You won’t get any “bad shortcut on desktop” errors. Which leads to my question: Upon what data do you base your comment, Mealone?
I’m a 70 year old that is not a tech guy … how could I be, I’m too old, right? Anyway, I read this article and I kept thinking: “I know a much simpler way, but I must be missing something. After 2 reads, I thought I’d respond but alas, George already covered my way. Drats! I wanted to answer a techy question online. 🙁
You still can, Dave! Answer away! 🙂
Umm Dave….this is going to be a little embarrassing, but hey, even us Tech guys over think things now and then.
You can create a shortcut of items (except folders) directly from the Start menu in one click. Just left click, hold, and drag and drop on the desktop.
Were so used to right clicks, sometimes we forget about left clicking.
Ha, I can’t believe there’s such a shorter shortcut! Good to know, however.
I just noticed that it’s indeed not possible to create shortcuts immediately from the start menu. Seriously MS? Anyway, I found another sort of trick that some of you might prefer. Right click on the item that you want from the start menu, select more, go to file location, and from there you can create a shortcut to the desktop. I think that this method doesn’t work for UWP apps though.
Yup! I was just about to reply with that solution. That’s how I always do it. Also, once I’m in the folder, I usually look through that folder to see what else I can make desktop shortcuts to while I’m in there.
You don’t need to pay attention to capitalization for shell:appsfolder.
Where/what is System Preferences?
Tweaked the article. And… “System Preferences” is a Mac-ism that snuck into the piece. Yeesh. 🙂