Windows 10: Create Settings shortcut in Windows 10

How to: Create Settings shortcut in Windows 10

How to Create a Settings shortcut in Windows 10


Information Most of the settings you'll want to change in Windows 10 are in Settings. Settings is organized into the separate System, Devices, Network & Internet, Personalization, Apps, Accounts, Time & language, Gaming, Ease of Access, Privacy, Update & security, Mixed reality, and Cortana categories with each their own page of settings. You can click/tap on a category to view and change more settings for that category.

This tutorial will show you how to create or download a Settings shortcut that you can use anywhere in Windows 10.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Download a Settings Shortcut
• Option Two: To Manually Create a Settings Shortcut

EXAMPLE: Settings








OPTION ONE [/i] To Download a Settings Shortcut
1. Click/tap on the Download button below to download the .zip file below.
Settings_shortcut.zip

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. 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 Settings 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)


Tip See also: Specific Settings Command Reference


explorer ms-settings:




3. Type Settings for the name, and click/tap on the Finish button. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You could name this shortcut anything you would like though.



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

5. Click/tap on the Shortcut tab, then 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)
%windir%\System32\shell32.dll




7. Select the icon highlighted in blue above, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot above)
NOTE: You could use any icon that you would like instead though.

8. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below step 5)

9. 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 Open Settings in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Settings context menu in Windows 10
• List of msi-settings URI Shortcuts to Open Settings Pages in Windows 10
• How to Create Shortcuts to Open Settings Pages in Windows 10
• How to Hide or Show Pages from Settings in Windows 10

:)

 

Windows 10 commands/shortcuts/env. var.

Keyboard shortcuts to open programs:

Create a shortcut on the desktop to whatever program you want. Right click -> Properties and fill in the field there. Sadly the shortcut needs to remain on the desktop, but you can hide it.

Fun fact: If you had keyboard shortcuts for programs pinned to your Windows 7 start menu, those shortcuts still work when you update to 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.

 

How to create a shortcut for a keyboard shortcut.

Hi Marcos,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

I understand that you are willing to create Keyboard shortcut on Windows 10. I will certainly help you.

I suggest you to follow the steps in the below Microsoft article to create
a keyboard shortcut for an app.

Create keyboard shortcuts to open desktop apps

Note: The troubleshooting steps in the above link are meant for windows 8, however, you can use the same for windows 10 as well.

Refer below article for more information on Keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcuts

Please post back with above information and we will be glad to assist you further.

Thank you.

 

Unable to create shortcuts in Windows 10

Hi Terry,

Provide us with additional information to assist you further:

• Have you made any changes to the operating system prior to this issue?
• Does this issue confined to create a shortcut for any specific application?

As a workaround, I suggest you to try creating shortcuts in Safe mode with networking and check if it helps.

Refer: Start your PC in safe mode in Windows 10


Follow the below steps to place the computer in normal mode.

• 
  Press Windows + R keys to open
  Run command.
  
• 
  Type msconfig
  and press Enter.
  
• 
  In the System Configuration
  window, click on General tab.
  
• 
  Select Start-up selection
  as Normal startup, click on Apply and
  Ok.
  
• 
  Follow onscreen instructions.
  

Reply to the post with the required information and brief description about this issue for further assistance.

Thank you.

 

How does one create shortcuts to start applications?

Hello Michel,

Thank you for bringing up your query on Microsoft Community.

• 
  What happens when you right-click on an app in Start?
  

You can create keyboard shortcuts to quickly open the desktop apps you use most often.

Keyboard shortcuts are key combinations that let you complete tasks in Windows that might otherwise take many steps.

Let us follow the steps in the below Microsoft article to
create a keyboard shortcut for an app.

Create keyboard shortcuts to open desktop apps

http://windows.microsoft.com/is-IS/windows-8/create-keyboard-shortcuts-to-open-apps

Note: The troubleshooting steps in the above link are meant for windows 8, however, you can use the same for windows 10 as well.

Also, see: Keyboard shortcuts

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/keyboard-shortcuts

Hope it helps.

Feel free to post if you have any further query on Windows.