Windows 10: Turn On or Off Shortcut Name Extension in Windows 10

How to: Turn On or Off Shortcut Name Extension in Windows 10

How to Turn On or Off 'Shortcut' Name Extension for New Shortcuts in Windows 10


Information When you right click or press and hold on a file, folder, or drive and click tap on either Create shortcut or Send to -> Desktop (create shortcut), a shortcut to that file, folder or drive will be created with the - Shortcut extension at the end of the filename by default.

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off having the - Shortcut extension in the file name of newly created shortcuts in your user account in Windows 10.



Note This will only affect shortcuts that you create afterwards, and will not affect shortcuts that already have the - Shortcut file name extension.

Shortcuts that already have the - Shortcut file name extension can only be renamed if you wanted to remove the - Shortcut extension from the shortcut's name.


EXAMPLE: "- Shortcut" file name extension






Here's How:



Note The .bat files below will modify the values in the registry keys below.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

link BINARY

00 00 00 00 = off
15 00 00 00 = on

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\NamingTemplates

Delete ShortcutNameTemplate string value



1. Do step 2 or step 3 below for what you would like to do.


2. To Turn On Shortcut Name Extension for New Shortcuts
NOTE: This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_On_Shortcut_Name_Extension.bat

Download
3. To Turn Off Shortcut Name Extension for New Shortcuts
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_Off_Shortcut_Name_Extension.bat

Download
4. Save the .bat file to your desktop, and unblock the .bat file.

5. Double click/tap on the .bat file to run it.

6. You will now notice your screen flicker as explorer is restarted.



That's it,
Shawn


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• How to Change, Remove, or Restore Shortcut Arrow Overlay Icon in Windows 10
• How to Change Default Shortcut Name Extension Template in Windows 7, 8, and 10
• How to Customize Details of Shortcut Infotips in Windows
• How to Hide or Show File Name Extensions in Windows 10
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:)

 

what is this gigantic IDEFile (400GB) in the media folder on my C: drive in Windows 10

The name of the file is just IDEFile? No extension? (Make sure
Hide extensions for known file types is turned off under Explorer's options.)

 

change or turn off shortcut key

Hi,

Thank you for being a part of Windows 10.

I appreciate you for providing details about the issue and we are happy to help you.

Please be informed that, you cannot modify or change the functionalities of the shortcut keys and it’s by design.

Kindly let us know if you need any further assistance with Windows. We are glad to assist you.

Thank you.

 

You're welcome Adam. *Smile

 

it would be great ,if there was a tip for removing the arrow also ^_^

 

Different than what this tutorial is for, but the tutorial below should work in Windows 10 as well. *Smile

Shortcut Arrow - Change, Remove, or Restore - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

You're most welcome. *Smile

 

The -shortcut text extension was still tacked on to the shortcut when I chose Create a shortcut from the context menu. I thought I forgot to run the batch file on this build - but the mod was in the registry.

I added the same attibute value pair to HKEY_Local_Machine (the batch file only has HKCU)

REG ADD "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" /V link /T REG_Binary /D 00000000 /F

 

Hey Bill, *Smile

That would be to set for all users. Unless the all users option was set, the tutorial should work for the current user only.

I had the tutorial only use current user so that any user could set it for their account. The all user HKLM option would require to be signed in as an administrator to set.

 

Yep & thanks.

I posted just to bring to your attention the difference between Create shortcut (context menu for an object) and New ... shortcut. The former tacks on -shortcut unless the HKLM key is set, the latter works as advertised.

 

Hey all,

This no longer seems to work in the latest version of Windows 10; Windows 10 Home, Version: 1511, OS Build: 10586.3
I'm not entirely sure why but I've tried changing the link key value to something other than 00 00 00, restarting windows explorer and then changing the value back, and restarting windows explorer once again and in all cases it still adds the - Shortcut extension text *Sad I have also noticed, upon restarting my PC the registry key value is reset to default, I've never known this to happen before... Am I doing something wrong? Because I haven't encountered these issues before this November update.

Regards

 

Hello Wh0pper28, *Smile

I've updated the .bat files. Please download the new versions, and try again.

 

Thanks a bunch, as of now it seems to be working. I will try a restart and see whether the registry key value sticks and report back with my results *Smile

UPDATE: I have just restarted my PC and created a new desktop shortcut, and the registry key value has stuck. That new .bat file works perfectly, thanks Brink much appreciated *Smile

Regards

 

You're most welcome Wh0pper28. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. *Smile

 

Hello, yours script show for some views black squares in desktop. Do you have any idea how fix it? Thank you.
PS: I dont want only scrolling view.