Shortcut to tweak desktop shortcuts
Q: I have many icons on my desktop. Some have a little white box in the lower left hand corner and in this box is a black curved arrow pointing to the upper right hand corner. What are these little white boxes? Are they necessary? If not, how do I get rid of them?
A: Those little white boxes with the arrow in them indicate that the icon is a shortcut, a representation of a file that is not actually stored on the desktop.
You can save a file to your desktop, making the file convenient to get to. I often save documents that I access frequently to my desktop. I also save files I download from the internet to my desktop so I can get to them easily after the download.
You can also save or create a shortcut to your desktop. This is an icon that allows you to access a file or a program on your computer from the desktop rather than clicking on Start, Programs etc. When you install a new program on your computer the install process will often create a shortcut on your desktop.
These shortcuts are distinguished by the little white box with the arrow that you have noticed. This is very useful in helping distinguish between a shortcut and an actual file. If you delete a shortcut, the file it refers to will not be deleted; if you delete an actual file from your desktop it is placed in the trash.
If you really want to be rid of the shortcut indicators, there’s a program that will allow you to customize your Windows PC called TweakUI, a nifty utility that has the ability to automatically clear your internet cache and history as well as many other useful functions.
It also has the ability to eliminate the little white boxes with the arrows from your shortcut icons.
You can download TweakUI from tinyurl.com/helplinetweakui
This tool is very powerful and can make some serious changes to your PC which is why, when it asks you to create a restore point, I suggest you do so in case you need to reverse any changes you make.