Windows 10: Create File History shortcut in Windows 10

How to: Create File History shortcut in Windows 10

How to Create File History shortcut in Windows 10


File History was first introduced in Windows 8, and has been improved in Windows 10.

You can use File History to automatically back up versions of your files on a schedule to a location you select to save to. You can select to save backups to an internal hard drive, externally connected drive (ex: USB drive), or you can save to a drive on a network. You can add, remove, and exclude folders to be backed up by File History.

Over time, you'll have a complete history of your files. If the originals are lost, damaged, or deleted, you can restore them. You can also browse and restore different versions of your files.

File History takes advantage of a feature built into the NTFS file system called the change journal to keep track of changes to files. Essentially, when any change is made to a file or folder on your hard disk, the change journal is updated with a description of the change and the name of the file or folder. So to determine which files need to be backed up, File History simply consults the NTFS change journal. Using the change journal is fast and efficient and won't use up a lot of system resources like running a conventional backup routine does.

If the drive selected as the backup location becomes unavailable, such as when a USB cable is disconnected or the network goes down for maintenance, File History will continue to do its job by saving the copies to a cache on the local drive. Once the backup location becomes available again, the cached contents are transferred to that location and removed from the local drive.

For more about File History, see:

• File History in Windows
• Windows 8: File History explained | TechNet Magazine

This tutorial will show you how to create or download a File History shortcut for your account in Windows 10.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Download a File History Shortcut
• Option Two: To Manually Create a File History Shortcut

EXAMPLE: File History in the Control Panel









OPTION ONE [/i] To Download a File History Shortcut
1 Click/tap on the Download button below to download the File_History_shortcut.zip file.
Download
2 Save the .zip file to your desktop.

3 Unblock the .zip file.

4 Open the .zip file, and extract (drag and drop) the shortcut to your desktop.

5 If you like, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to, or move this shortcut to where you like for easy use.

6 When finished, you can delete the downloaded .zip file if you like.





OPTION TWO [/i] To Manually Create a File History Shortcut
1 Right click or press and hold on an empty area on your desktop, and click/tap on New and Shortcut.

2 Copy and paste the location below into the location area, and click/tap on Next. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow control /name Microsoft.FileHistory




3 Type File History for the name, and click/tap on the Finish button. (see screenshot below)

You could name this shortcut anything you would like though.





4 Right click or press and hold on the new File History shortcut, and click/tap on Properties.

5 Click/tap on the Shortcut tab, and click/tap on the Change Icon button. (see screenshot below)



6 In the line under "Look for icons in this file", copy and paste the location below, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow C:\Windows\System32\FileHistory.exe




7 Select the icon highlighted in blue above, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot above)

You could use any icon that you would like instead though.



8 Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



9 If you like, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to, or move this shortcut to where you like for easy use.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Turn On or Off File History in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable File History in Windows 10
• How to Reset File History to Default in Windows 10
• How to Select a File History Drive in Windows 10
• How to Exclude Folders from File History in Windows 10
• How to Manually Create a File History Backup in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Folders to be Backed Up by File History in Windows 10
• How to Change how Often to Save File History in Windows 10
• How to Change how Long to Keep File History in Windows 10
• How to Restore Files or Folders using File History in Windows 10
• How to Delete Older Versions of File History in Windows 10
• How to Recommend File History Drive to Homegroup in Windows 10
• How to Add History to Context Menu in Windows 10

:)

 

Creating Shortcuts with Batch File

I've created a Batch file which calls on the following VB Script to be able to create a shortcut to my desktop:

VB Script (named createLink.vbs):
Code: set objWSHShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") set objFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") ' command line arguments ' TODO: error checking sShortcut = objWSHShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings(WScript.Arguments.Item(0)) sTargetPath = objWSHShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings(WScript.Arguments.Item(1)) sWorkingDirectory = objFso.GetAbsolutePathName(sShortcut) set objSC = objWSHShell.CreateShortcut(sShortcut) objSC.TargetPath = sTargetPath objSC.WorkingDirectory = sWorkingDirectory objSC.Save[/quote] Batch File Example (for Windows Notepad):
Code: @echo off cscript createLink.vbs "C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\Notepad.lnk" "C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe"[/quote] But after creating the shortcut using this method, I'm not able to assign a custom icon for the shortcut. I get the following error message when trying to do so:





Any help and ideas on what I need to put into the VB Script and/or Batch File to be able to do this would be greatly appreciated! *Big Grin

Also, I know that I can simply do this by going to Start Menu\All Programs\Accessories\ right-clicking on Notepad and selecting Send to\Desktop (create shortcut). Easy enough for creating a single shortcut. But I need to create several multiple shortcuts and using this Batch/VBS method would really save me a lot of time in doing so.

 

Creating Shortcuts with Batch File

Tried both of the VB Scripts that you provided and adding the 9 switch to the batch file but neither was able to create a shortcut to my desktop.

 

Creating Shortcuts with Batch File

So basically my Batch File will now look like this:

Code: @echo off CreateShortcut.exe "C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\Notepad.lnk" "C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe"[/quote] Thanks man! *Big Grin This does exactly what I want done and I'm able to customize the icon for the shortcut without problems. But I'm not quite sure how to use the [icon file] portion you mentioned that it supports. I tried the following Batch File:

Code: @echo off CreateShortcut.exe "C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\Notepad.lnk" "C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe" "C:\Users\Administrator\Pictures\Notepad.ico"[/quote] It created the shortcut but didn't change the icon.

 

Creating Shortcuts with Batch File

Hmm, I just tried it and it worked fine. Maybe try running the batch as administrator? Also, right click on the desktop after the shortcut is created and click Refresh.

If the file in the third parameter doesn't exist, it assumes the icon is in the application.

 

Creating Shortcuts with Batch File

Threw a program together quick for you. It is attached with source in the other. Use it in place of your VBScript.

It supports:
CreateShortcut [save shortcut] [path to run]
CreateShortcut [save shortcut] [path to run] [icon index]
CreateShortcut [save shortcut] [path to run] [icon file]
CreateShortcut [save shortcut] [path to run] [icon file] [icon index]

If "icon index" is missing, it assumes 0. If "icon file" is missing it assumes "path to run." It doesn't presently support arguments to be added to the shortcut nor modifying the working directory (always assumes same directory as "path to run").

Requires .NET Framework 4.0 to run. Will run natively on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.