Anyway to remove the Shortcut Arrow

wigster · 31 May 2018 at 06:57

With windows 10 you would have thought they would have removed this its not that you need the symbol, is there anyway to remove it?

tnx · 31 May 2018 at 07:42

Wish I was on my PC. I would have the link to the "blank icon" you need and I would be able to quote the REG needed to add the blank icon.
By the time I'm on my PC somebody will have linked what you need.

Been doing this since Win 7, there is also a nice little REG edit to get rid of the "shortcut" suffix too for when new shortcuts are made.
Will quote them later, I need to buy a new bag of coal to get the old thing up n running.

This will help though

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials...on-change-remove-restore-windows-10-a-20.html

tnx · 31 May 2018 at 08:16

To remove the shortcut arrow you need the "Blank Icon". You could Google it or pick it up from my Google Drive
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cWdq2c4huTvnPf21aANYlvYDohV2GRry

Then when you have the "Blank Icon" you will need to place this into the system root. i.e C:\Windows

Then copy the following code

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

::Hide Shortcut Arrow
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons]
"29"="%SystemRoot%\\Blank.ico,0"

Open Notepad and paste it and save it as "Hide Shortcut Arrow.reg"
the ".reg" is important.
You now have a REG file and simply double clicking on will run the REG file, you will get a couple of pop ups, just agree and once its done, reboot and hey presto, no more shortcut arrows.

And if you want to remove the "Shortcut" suffix make another REG file with this code

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

:: Removes shortcut prefix
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"link"=hex:00,00,00,00
"-link"=hex:00,00,00,00

And if you want to get a little adventurous you could make your own .dll file and have the Blank Icon live in there, plus any other custom icons you make.
This is how I do it, then the code would be

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

:: Hide Shortcut Arrow
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons]
"29"="MyIcons.dll,17"

Then the .dll file lives in the system root.

Hope this helps.

wigster · 31 May 2018 at 08:17

Thanks, I shall give this a proper read tonight and have a go at this.

Raiden85 · 1 Jun 2018 at 04:55

Much easier way and can be done in one button press, download this tool called windows tweaker 4, click on customisation on the right and click on remove shortcut arrows, shows as restore for me as I always remove them. Been using it for years and still works fine.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-4-windows-10

Daaaavvveee · 1 Jun 2018 at 07:15

tnx said:
To remove the shortcut arrow you need the "Blank Icon". You could Google it or pick it up from my Google Drive
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cWdq2c4huTvnPf21aANYlvYDohV2GRry

Then when you have the "Blank Icon" you will need to place this into the system root. i.e C:\Windows

Then copy the following code

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 ::Hide Shortcut Arrow [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons] "29"="%SystemRoot%\\Blank.ico,0"

Open Notepad and paste it and save it as "Hide Shortcut Arrow.reg"
the ".reg" is important.
You now have a REG file and simply double clicking on will run the REG file, you will get a couple of pop ups, just agree and once its done, reboot and hey presto, no more shortcut arrows.

And if you want to remove the "Shortcut" suffix make another REG file with this code

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 :: Removes shortcut prefix [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer] "link"=hex:00,00,00,00 "-link"=hex:00,00,00,00

And if you want to get a little adventurous you could make your own .dll file and have the Blank Icon live in there, plus any other custom icons you make.
This is how I do it, then the code would be

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 :: Hide Shortcut Arrow [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons] "29"="MyIcons.dll,17"

Then the .dll file lives in the system root.

Hope this helps.

Done that a few times, works well. Did you try in the end?

wigster · 1 Jun 2018 at 13:27

Radeon85 said:
Much easier way and can be done in one button press, download this tool called windows tweaker 4, click on customisation on the right and click on remove shortcut arrows, shows as restore for me as I always remove them. Been using it for years and still works fine.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-4-windows-10

Daaaavvveee said:
Done that a few times, works well. Did you try in the end?

In the end i did try the regedit way,without the arrow looks much better, You just have to remember which is a shortcut and which is your real folder if you are deleting things. Windows tweaker does look a much easier way though.