How to Remove Shortcut Arrow on Desktop Icons in Windows 7

Howdy guys,

It is true that sometimes the arrow present in shortcut icons seem irritating, especially when they are on your cute desktop.  In this post, I'll explain how to Hide and Remove Shortcut Arrow from Desktop Icons and Other Icons.

1.Run Registry Editor (RegEdit).

2.Navigate to the following registry key:  HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile

3.Delete the IsShortcut registry value in the right pane. 

  Tip: It’s also workable to just rename the IsShortcut registry entry to another name, such as IsNotShortcut.

4.Some other type of documents and files may be shortcut arrow on their icons too. To remove the shortcut arrow overlay image on these icons, navigate to each of the following registry keys, and then repeat step 2 and step 3 above to deactivate the shortcut arrow: 

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ConferenceLink

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DocShortCut

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WSHFile

5.Exit from Registry Editor.

6.Logout and login again or restart Explorer for the change to take effect.

Note : Please note that in some cases deactivating the arrow for *.LNK files might lead to duplicate items in the Explorer context menu, as in essence, removing the “IsShortcut” effectively forces Windows to treat the shortcut as real hard file. In Windows 7, it may also cause error such as unable to pin shortcut to Taskbar or Start Menu. To avoid these issue, use another workaround to remove shortcut arrow.

Posted in: New Tricks , Useful Tips