Windows 10 comes with a Start Menu which allows you to Pin Apps and Installed Software to Start Menu. Even then, I am sure many of you have shortcuts on the desktop. And what is the most annoying thing about it? The arrows. I have hated them since Windows XP days. In this post, I will share how you can remove or change shortcut arrows in Windows 10.
How to Remove or Change Shortcut Arrows in Windows 10
Windows 10 doesn’t have any direct option to remove them, and changing Windows Registry is not easy or possible for everyone. So here is a tool, WinAero Tweaker, which allows you to do that. It’s an old tool but has been updated to work with Windows 10. You can do the following with shortcuts part:
- Remove Arrows on the shortcuts.
- Use custom arrows.
- Use the classic arrow that came with an earlier version of Windows.
- Revert to using arrow again.
The best part of using this tool is you can always go back and forth without any risk of messing up with the registry. The only thing you will need is the admin privilege. So once you download the software, press shift + right-click and choose run as administrator.
Then within the software, there are tons of customization available, for now, switch to Shortcuts section and select Shortcut Arrow. You have all the options mentioned above; all you will need to do is choose. If you choose custom, you can select a different icon.
A word of caution. Make sure to keep the app somewhere you can find easily and won’t delete. Whenever you want to change something, launch it the way we told, and you will be good to go.
Apart from removing Shortcut Arrows, the software offers few more options.
- Remove Shortcut text from any new shortcut you create
- If you want to run a program with elevated privileges, but without UAC prompt, use the Elevated Shortcut option. You will have manually create one using the original program
- Safe mode shortcuts to boot into Safe Mode with or without networking
- Create a shortcut for Screen Snip
- Open shell folders directly
Download Winaero Tweaker from here
How to remove arrows on shortcut using Registry Editor
If you are comfortable using the Registry Editor, here is how to do it:
- Type REGEDIT in the Run prompt, and hit enter to open Registry Editor.
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
- Right-click on Explore, and choose to create a new key (FOLDER), i.e., Menu > New > Key and name it Shell Icons.
- Select the Shell icons folder, and on the left pane, right-click and choose New > String Value. Name the string to be numerical 29.
- Double click on “29” String, and edit the string value
- The value should be %windir%\System32\shell32.dll,-50, and added to the VALUE field.
Click on the OK button, and reboot the computer. It will remove the arrows from all the shortcut.
