Shortcuts in any operating systems have to use constantly. This is no secret to anyone. However, novice users, performing some actions, sometimes make mistakes when working with a shortcut. How to fix a few typical situations, and then try to figure it out. It’s worth paying attention to the fact that even when deleting shortcuts with the system or applications for which they were created, nothing catastrophic will happen, since they serve only as a pointer to the location of the desired file for quick start of the program, opening the document, network resource or links to a page on the Internet.
Common shortcut errors
Before making any specific decisions in eliminating or correcting problems with shortcuts, let's figure out what, in fact, may be the mistakes of users who are trying to perform some actions with them.
The most common situation can be called those cases when you click on the application icon, but the program does not start, and the system reports that the file to which the link is made has been deleted or moved. No less often you can meet situations where the label changes its appearance, and the icon becomes white (or transparent). This indicates that the application or files were deleted incorrectly (moreover, along with the icon file), and the shortcut with a link to it remained. This can often be found in cases where the removal of the program was carried out manually, and the shortcut was fixed, for example, on the "Taskbar".
Finally, the most unpleasant situation is observed with shortcuts represented in the form of browser icons and links to certain web resources, when you open not the start page or the site indicated in the link, but some advertising resource, an incomprehensible search engine, all kinds of casinos or sites of dubious content .
These are, in general terms, the main mistakes when working with shortcuts. How to fix each of the presented situations, then we will try to figure it out. Let's start with the simplest.
How to open the properties of a shortcut and check the link to an object?
First, let's assume that the file referenced by the shortcut was actually deleted or moved to another location by the user. When you click on the icon, but the system does not find the specified object, a window immediately appears asking you to specify the path to the file yourself. How to fix a shortcut error in this case? Just through the review, find the very file to which the link is registered in the shortcut, then click the "OK" button.
You can do differently. Call the properties of the shortcut using the corresponding item in the RMB menu on the program icon, and then on the shortcut tab look at the field of the object type. Here you need to either enter the path to the desired file manually, or copy it from the address bar of the "Explorer" in the form of text, then paste it into the appropriate block and save the changes.
How to create a shortcut on the "Desktop" instead of the remote?
In general, as practice shows, it is often advisable to use a simpler solution. To get started, you can simply remove the non-working shortcut or link from the "Desktop" or from the "Taskbar" (in the tenth version of Windows, an unpin item is used for this).
After that, find in the "Explorer" the directory with the desired application start file, and then through the PCM click on the "Send ..." item, and then select "Desktop (create shortcut)" from the additional menu. The image for the icon in the form of an icon will be attached automatically.
You can also just create a shortcut directly in the workspace (or in the file manager) using the PCM menu for this, and then specify the location of the desired object on the disk or an Internet address.
How to display a shortcut on the "Desktop", figured out. But what if the icon changes its appearance?
To do this, in the properties of the shortcut, you can use the button to change the icon and select any other image from the standard set or from what can be offered for the desired application. Typically, these image files are in ICO format and are located in the root directory with installed programs.
Some features of viral effects on browser shortcuts
Finally, let's see how to fix a mistake when working with a shortcut if you encounter a virus infection of your computer with all kinds of virus-based applets of an advertising nature. We do not take into account their removal or neutralization now, since this is a separate topic for discussion. Let us focus on the fact that almost all known viruses of this type create postscripts in the form of links in the fields of the object type of browser shortcuts, which is why even after deleting the virus body, redirection to questionable websites on the Internet can be carried out. Open the shortcut properties of your browser, and then in the object field look at the end of the line with the address of the browser executable file.
After its name with the extension .exe there should be absolutely nothing. If you find something there, just delete the registry and save the changes.
Note: for most known browsers, the final file name will contain the name of the browser with the .exe extension, but for the Opera browser, the file Launcher.exe will be specified.