Remove Shortcut Icon Arrow in Windows 7

Remove Windows 7 Shortcut Icon Arrow

While the arrow is useful for differentiating between a shortcut and original file or an application, Shortcuts point to files or programs that are stored elsewhere on your hard drive. If you drag and drop a program from start menu to the desktop, you create a shortcut to the original program. To make it clear that it's a shortcut and not the original file, Windows displays an arrow in the lower-left corner of the icon. Since you don’t put shortcuts anywhere except the Desktop or Start menu it isn’t too hard to manage them.

If you don't like the arrows, you can turn them off by editing the Windows Registry or using the free software available. Here is how you get rid of that arrow.

Get Rid of The Windows 7 Shortcut Arrows (Using Regedit.exe):

This method involves manually editing the Windows registry. If you aren’t comfortable with this or editing the registry you might want to use Software freely available to download.

Note : Please take backup of Registry or create a System Restore Point before doing the changes.

Steps :-

1. Click the Start Menu, Type regedit into the search box.

2. Browse to the following registry key:

KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons

If the Shell Icons key does not exist you’ll need to create it. To do so Right-Click the Explorer key and Select New > Key.

Be sure to exactly name the new key Shell Icons.

3. In the Left pane Right Click on the Shell Icons key and Select New > String Value. Name the new string as "29" (Without Quotes).

4. Right or Double-Click the 29 entry to modify it. In the value data box enter the following:

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\shell32.dll,50

5. Click OK to Save changes.

6. You needs to restart your computer for the settings to take effect.

Done!

Now all of your shortcuts should now longer have an arrow overlay in the bottom-left corner!

Revert The Settings :

To change this back simply go back to the registry key and delete the 29 entry.

Note : Please take backup of Registry or create a System Restore Point before doing the changes.

Source : naveenkapil.in/blog