Admin Tips
- Windows Server 2008/2003/2000/XP/NT Administrator Knowledge Base
  - Windows XP
    - User Tips
      - Customization
        Creative Uses for Desktop Shortcuts

Section(s): Customization, Customization
Published on May 29, 2004.
Last Modified on May 29, 2004.
Last Modified by Wayne Maples.
Rated 3.4 out of 5 based on 9 votes.

It turns out that there are some really niffty ways to use desktop shortcuts in Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.

email : send email to same person or set of people a LOT?
Create a shortcut and for the location, enter:
mailto:wmaples@swbell.net
Send jokes out to 10 emails?
mailto:person1@somewhere.net,person2@isp2.net, ...
URL : launch favorite web site
See details in my User Tip #49: Launch URL from Windows Desktop Icon
lock PC : see details in my User Tip #47: Create Lock Desktop Icon
Control Panel Applets: variant of technique in my Admin Tip #130: Control Applets
if you can run them from a batch file, you can put them in a shortcut

Administrative Tools :
in the system32 folder of XP or W2K is the msc files. If you use one or more of the admin utils often, create a desktop shortcut to a .msc file. msc file listing on my XP workstation:

 
         Directory of E:\WINDOWS\system32
         
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            42,339 certmgr.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            41,762 ciadv.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            38,302 compmgmt.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            33,079 devmgmt.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            41,397 dfrg.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            33,673 diskmgmt.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            56,678 eventvwr.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            32,760 fsmgmt.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            34,871 gpedit.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            42,166 lusrmgr.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            26,209 ntmsmgr.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            32,968 ntmsoprq.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            58,273 perfmon.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            44,451 rsop.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            36,364 secpol.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            33,464 services.msc
         08/18/2001  06:00 AM            63,488 wmimgmt.msc

Experiment with these as shortcuts.

I have other shortcuts on my desktop but they are fairly obvious such as the "telnet is-it-true.org". If you have a neat use of shortcuts, please let me know: Wayne.