Hei Franko. Thanks for sharing this information. This is strange. I re-uploaded the same ZIP file to Virus Total and requested a new analysis. It’s not four viruses. Virus Total said four antivirus products found something malicious inside the ZIP. After my new analysis request, the number lowered to two. I find this strange. We put inside the ZIP only shortcuts to Windows apps. And all the renown antivirus vendors don’t see anything wrong with it. Only less known antivirus products like “Antiy-AVL” or “MaxSecure”. I never heard of them.
Renoun antivirus vendors don’t see anything wrong with our ZIP file (Bitdenfender, Microsoft, Google, ESET, etc).
Asome Thank You And this goes goes out to Any users that accidentlly deleted their command Prompt but don’t delete the actual shortcut that you just Downlad from Windows shortcut file.
Thank you so much for these shortcuts! Totally needed this. Makes windows 10, which I like, much better and much more like Win 7 – now best of both worlds.
Thanks …………….. but a great pity that any one reading must scroll & read at some length, then search for a download Link.
Yes I eventually saw it, well hidden in small light blue text.
Is this the best the poster can do, shows a certain lack of presentation skills, seen all too often.
my volume button either on my tablet or my keyboard continues to automatically turn down. Is there a way were i can cut of access from one or the other. If any other solution i dont want to have to uninstall and re install etc etc. I have an HP ENVY Detachable PC 13
I love this site! No referrals to those long-winded and often useless official Microsoft help sites that just waste time. Here are the answers, period. Kudos to all the solution contributors. Even the Captcha is great! (From a longtime fix-it-yourselfer whose worst problems are often self-created!)
Thanks for the shortcuts. I may have missed it but I don’t see one for “create a restore point”. I think/hope that the ratio of create to restore should be at least 100 to 1 (the 1 being restore) if not higher. Therefore, I would request a shortcut for the create function.
Our XP style printer will print from a Windows 7 PC but will not scan to the
PC. What can I do? Please answer in terms a novice can understand. I’m
82 and losing it.
HI this is great idea & help NEEDED a short cut to simple STOP all Network traffic dead – I toggle to block & unblock all network traffic wired or wireless or just block my wired broadband in & out. Can this be done?
cheers Dan
I would like 2 shortcuts – both to the “Customize” buttons for “Protected Network Connections” on the “Private Profile” tab (1st shortcut) and the “Public Profile” tab (2nd shortcut) on the “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security on Local Computer Properties” Dialog box – are these possible?
I would like a desktop shortcut or a hotkey for Volume-up and -down. I find it tedious to click on the taskbar volume icon and then adjust volume with the mouse.
I recently came across a master list of windows 7 shortcuts by lifehacker. We have a few they don’t and vice versa if anybody wants to give it a look. Have at it!
I love stuff like this… I added the Windows 7 God Mode folder to this collection on my PC. Just posted an article on my blog about this collection, pointing back to 7Tutorials.
Great job on this and looking forward to any further developments. Please keep me advised and I’ll post the changes on my blog.
We did not know to look there, looked every were else.
but yes RDC doest block restarts try it if you find a better way I will be glad to try.
mean while I will look in the library
Thank you, chas, for that suggestion. While pursuing your suggestion here, I discovered that I can simply assign a custom keystroke to some number of characters in Word 2010 beta. I can assign, for instance, ctrl-f1 as degree symbol and ctrl-f2 as 1/4, etc. The only problem is that these shortcuts only work in Word. I will experiment some more and see if your “copy and paste” method may not work better than going directly to character map for non-word applications.
You’re very welcome, John, and thank *you* for the custom tip in Word. I didn’t know that..! Nice thing about the Wordpad thing is that you can size and posit it right next to Charmap for some very quick C/P.
I’m going to experiment with some custom key strokes now and maybe that will work someway, somehow, outside of Word.
I frequently need ° (degree symbol), ¼, ½, and ¾ characters from the character map. I have a shortcut to character map pinned to the taskbar, but it is quite involved to open the character map from taskbar, highlight the desired character, select the character, copy that character to clipboard, close the character map, then paste (ctrl-v) the character to the document. Is there a way to create a shortcut directly to these 4 characters (or a small number of specific characters) without jumping through hoops that is more involved than spelling out the word degree, for instance? I realize that these shortcut characters would not always match the document font, but that would not be a problem with the 4 characters in question.
I’m not sure if you know that the character map contains keyboard shortcuts to some of the characters it contains. Here are the shortcuts to the characters that you use. The numbers must be typed on the numeric keypad (on laptops you ususally need to hold down a function key and type the numbers that are on the letter keys.
º Alt+0186
¼ Atl+0188
½ Alt+0189
¾ Alt+0190
These shortcuts are shown at the bottom right corner of the program window.
chas also mentioned sticky notes. You can copy from sticky notes by selecting the character, then press Ctrl+C on your keyboard.
“NOTE: We’ve received some requests for shortcuts which cannot be created without using third party tools which are not bundled with Windows 7. Since the purpose of this collection is to use existing Windows 7 tools and commands, we will not include those third-party tools in our collection.”
Do all of these require third-party tools:?
Clear the Clipboard
Speak the Text on the Clipboard
Empty the Recycle Bin
Start up the Screensaver
and
Turn off the Monitor
Unfortunately yes. We’ve tried to search for commands which do these tasks but you cannot do them without third party tools. If you know of any way to do this directly from windows via a command, please share and we will update the library.
Right-click on your desktop, move the cursor to “New”, click on “Text document”, change the name to “Flush clipboard.bat”, answer “Yes”. right click on the new icon on your desktop, click on “Edit”, paste these two lines of text:
echo Flushing clipboard
echo off | clip
Close and Save.
Now you have a bat-file on your desktop, If you click on it and hit enter the content of your clipboard will be erased. Clipboard history will NOT be erased. You can turn of clipboard history in Windows settings.
Hello is there a short cut to load volume settings (B). on my computer some how the volume settings are hidden (A). i have to go to control panel/hardware/sound/volume. I usually play this MMOG “CityofHeroes” here is a picture of my desktop
Thank you very much for these very useful shortcuts.
You have a Network and Sharing Center shortcut.
When you open that there is a link on the left “Change adapter setings”
Would it be possible to create a shortcut directly to that link?
I realise this is only saving one click. But I want to be able to put this on users’ computers so that I do not have to explain where to click.
I really think you should add shortcuts that:
Clear the Clipboard
Speak the Text on the Clipboard
Empty the Recycle Bin
Start up the Screensaver
and
Turn off the Monitor
As you can see from the link below: sleep is actually hybrid sleep in Windows 7 and it is very similar to hibernate. I’m not sure exactly what is your complaint. Can you please explain?
I am trying to get a shortcut on my second computer with windows 7 to put it to sleep without using the start menu. I know, how lazy. My first computer has a sleep button on the keyboard (a little moon shaped button). That puts it to sleep and pressing a key on the keyboard the computer wakes up in a few seconds to the desktop. I tried the sleep shortcut I downloaded from this site and it puts it into hibernation and I have to press the power button. It then takes 30 seconds to full wake up and I have to click user name to login.
My second computers power button is not accessible without opening a security panel so I was hoping to wake it up with the keyboard. I also wake it up remotely so having to press the user to get back to the desktop is not an option.
Every other OS up to this point has had the ability to create a shortcut on the desk top to go into standby/sleep. Why can’t Windows 7??
Just trying to figure out if it’s possible. Why can the sleep button do it by not a desktop shortcut?
Totally understand your point. I’ve searched and tested like crazy for the last 2 hours and i’ve found no solution. It seems that the shortcut we provided (according to documentation from Microsoft) puts your computer into Hybrid Sleep mode directly which is very similar to Hibernate and you need to press the power button to resume it.
For whatever reason, you cannot put the computer into sleep mode from the command line if hibernation is enabled. So, if you want our shortcut to work as you want to, you need to disable hibernation first, which is not a recommended solution.
I find the link to these shortcuts, but cannot find a way to get them into a convenient printing format. It appears that I would have to open each tip separately and print them individually. Am I missing something here?
No, No!! I am not wanting to print an individual shortcut. That is all I see the ability to do now. I want to print the list of 99 shortcuts (as a list) to save on paper and refer to on occasion to refresh my memory on any that I have forgotten about.
You can’t. What you’d have to do is to look at each shortcut’s properties, and copy and paste it’s command line into an editor. But that’s only useful if you’re trying to understand the shortcut, rather that just using it.
DUH!!! Upon revisiting this site, it comes to me that these are – what are they – Windows shortcuts? I have been thinking keyboard shortcuts all this time. (ctrl-C, ctrl-P, etc.) No wonder I was confused. I may be slow, but at least I'm pointed in the right direction. To those who tried to explain this to me – thanks much for your efforts and patience.
Here’s a neat tip. To show ALL Control Panel links, use the following command:
C:Windowsexplorer.exe shell:::{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
Try it, you’ll like it!
72 Responses to “Download the largest collection of Windows desktop shortcuts for free!”
Virus Total reads 4 viruses in Windows Shortcuts.zip file.
https://imgur.com/a/DXQ3AB9
Hei Franko. Thanks for sharing this information. This is strange. I re-uploaded the same ZIP file to Virus Total and requested a new analysis. It’s not four viruses. Virus Total said four antivirus products found something malicious inside the ZIP. After my new analysis request, the number lowered to two. I find this strange. We put inside the ZIP only shortcuts to Windows apps. And all the renown antivirus vendors don’t see anything wrong with it. Only less known antivirus products like “Antiy-AVL” or “MaxSecure”. I never heard of them.
Renoun antivirus vendors don’t see anything wrong with our ZIP file (Bitdenfender, Microsoft, Google, ESET, etc).
Have to view de shortcut zip file
Nice list – does it ever get updated?
Once every few years. 🙂
Fantastic! Thank you!
Thank you so vey much for this! Much appreciated!
Link is dead.
We just tested the link, and it works. Try again, please.
Just Unparalleled & Tremendous Creativity! Very well done guys. Keep it up !!!
Asome Thank You And this goes goes out to Any users that accidentlly deleted their command Prompt but don’t delete the actual shortcut that you just Downlad from Windows shortcut file.
Thank you so much for these shortcuts! Totally needed this. Makes windows 10, which I like, much better and much more like Win 7 – now best of both worlds.
Happy to help! Don’t hesitate to subscribe to our website.
Thanks …………….. but a great pity that any one reading must scroll & read at some length, then search for a download Link.
Yes I eventually saw it, well hidden in small light blue text.
Is this the best the poster can do, shows a certain lack of presentation skills, seen all too often.
my volume button either on my tablet or my keyboard continues to automatically turn down. Is there a way were i can cut of access from one or the other. If any other solution i dont want to have to uninstall and re install etc etc. I have an HP ENVY Detachable PC 13
Awesome!
I love this site! No referrals to those long-winded and often useless official Microsoft help sites that just waste time. Here are the answers, period. Kudos to all the solution contributors. Even the Captcha is great! (From a longtime fix-it-yourselfer whose worst problems are often self-created!)
Thanks for the shortcuts. I may have missed it but I don’t see one for “create a restore point”. I think/hope that the ratio of create to restore should be at least 100 to 1 (the 1 being restore) if not higher. Therefore, I would request a shortcut for the create function.
I downloaded the win 8 shortcuts folder but I can’t find it on my computer. I’m new to WIN 8.1
Where is this located? Please help
Thanks
Our XP style printer will print from a Windows 7 PC but will not scan to the
PC. What can I do? Please answer in terms a novice can understand. I’m
82 and losing it.
Love your post too! Thank you.
This is awesome! Thanks so much!
Happy to help. 🙂
Hello could you tell me how you can make a format shortcut when you do a right click on the drive.
You cannot make an actual shortcut to a command applied to a dynamic drive.
You need to make a batch script or a program for that.
Ack! Was hoping for KEYBOARD shortcuts! Still, probably nice to have all these suckers in one place…..
HI this is great idea & help NEEDED a short cut to simple STOP all Network traffic dead – I toggle to block & unblock all network traffic wired or wireless or just block my wired broadband in & out. Can this be done?
cheers Dan
I would like 2 shortcuts – both to the “Customize” buttons for “Protected Network Connections” on the “Private Profile” tab (1st shortcut) and the “Public Profile” tab (2nd shortcut) on the “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security on Local Computer Properties” Dialog box – are these possible?
I would like a desktop shortcut or a hotkey for Volume-up and -down. I find it tedious to click on the taskbar volume icon and then adjust volume with the mouse.
wow just found these today hope they work for win 7 ultimate and home premium, thank you for the download.
I recently came across a master list of windows 7 shortcuts by lifehacker. We have a few they don’t and vice versa if anybody wants to give it a look. Have at it!
http://lifehacker.com/#!5390086/angies list/the-master-list-of-new-windows-7-shortcuts
Thank you for this very useful collection. Much appreciated!
Cool shortcuts, very useful. Thanks a bunch!!! I found a few move shortcuts here: http://www.usingcomputers.co.uk/tutorials/useful-windows-shortcuts.php its worth taking a look at combined with this article. Thanks, keep up the good posts!
Big Thanks 😀 😀
just fantastic ….these 109 shortcuts will definitely helps win-7 lovers.
myself even made a similar post in my blog
regards
ganesh
I love stuff like this… I added the Windows 7 God Mode folder to this collection on my PC. Just posted an article on my blog about this collection, pointing back to 7Tutorials.
Great job on this and looking forward to any further developments. Please keep me advised and I’ll post the changes on my blog.
Recent article here: http://whatsonmypc.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/windows-7-shortcuts/
Great site!
Do you know how to create these shortcuts:
Taskbar (1) add new toolbar, (2) remove toolbar, (3) lock taskbar, (4) unlock taskbar (all currently found by right clicking the taskbar)
Change desktop icons ((Found in Personalization)
Display delete confirmation dialog (recycle bin > properties)
Search Start> Search programs and files (the search shortcut that I have takes me to the other search
Screen Saver (found in Personalization)
Thank you
want to reboot the computer in w7 that im controling with rdc
there use to be a way with task manager but thats changed, ideas?
Can’t you use the reboot shortcut from the start menu or from our library of shortcuts?
We did not know to look there, looked every were else.
but yes RDC doest block restarts try it if you find a better way I will be glad to try.
mean while I will look in the library
ctrl-alt-end
Thank you, chas, for that suggestion. While pursuing your suggestion here, I discovered that I can simply assign a custom keystroke to some number of characters in Word 2010 beta. I can assign, for instance, ctrl-f1 as degree symbol and ctrl-f2 as 1/4, etc. The only problem is that these shortcuts only work in Word. I will experiment some more and see if your “copy and paste” method may not work better than going directly to character map for non-word applications.
Thanks much for your input.
John
You’re very welcome, John, and thank *you* for the custom tip in Word. I didn’t know that..! Nice thing about the Wordpad thing is that you can size and posit it right next to Charmap for some very quick C/P.
I’m going to experiment with some custom key strokes now and maybe that will work someway, somehow, outside of Word.
Chas.
I frequently need ° (degree symbol), ¼, ½, and ¾ characters from the character map. I have a shortcut to character map pinned to the taskbar, but it is quite involved to open the character map from taskbar, highlight the desired character, select the character, copy that character to clipboard, close the character map, then paste (ctrl-v) the character to the document. Is there a way to create a shortcut directly to these 4 characters (or a small number of specific characters) without jumping through hoops that is more involved than spelling out the word degree, for instance? I realize that these shortcut characters would not always match the document font, but that would not be a problem with the 4 characters in question.
A fun question to play with..:-)
Since a sticky note won’t copy, you can use Notepad to create a small list made from Charmap and can C/P from there into the doc.
Not exactly a ‘shortcut’ but it is much ‘shorter’ than wrestling Charmap. Took me about 1 minute make one:
°
¼
½
¾
You can format those for font size and all and if you use them frequently, just pop it onto the taskbar.
Probably not what you want, but could be handy.
I’m not sure if you know that the character map contains keyboard shortcuts to some of the characters it contains. Here are the shortcuts to the characters that you use. The numbers must be typed on the numeric keypad (on laptops you ususally need to hold down a function key and type the numbers that are on the letter keys.
º Alt+0186
¼ Atl+0188
½ Alt+0189
¾ Alt+0190
These shortcuts are shown at the bottom right corner of the program window.
chas also mentioned sticky notes. You can copy from sticky notes by selecting the character, then press Ctrl+C on your keyboard.
“NOTE: We’ve received some requests for shortcuts which cannot be created without using third party tools which are not bundled with Windows 7. Since the purpose of this collection is to use existing Windows 7 tools and commands, we will not include those third-party tools in our collection.”
Do all of these require third-party tools:?
Clear the Clipboard
Speak the Text on the Clipboard
Empty the Recycle Bin
Start up the Screensaver
and
Turn off the Monitor
Unfortunately yes. We’ve tried to search for commands which do these tasks but you cannot do them without third party tools. If you know of any way to do this directly from windows via a command, please share and we will update the library.
Right-click on your desktop, move the cursor to “New”, click on “Text document”, change the name to “Flush clipboard.bat”, answer “Yes”. right click on the new icon on your desktop, click on “Edit”, paste these two lines of text:
echo Flushing clipboard
echo off | clip
Close and Save.
Now you have a bat-file on your desktop, If you click on it and hit enter the content of your clipboard will be erased. Clipboard history will NOT be erased. You can turn of clipboard history in Windows settings.
Hi. We just updated the collection of Windows 7 shortcuts and now it includes some of the shortcuts you requested.
Hello is there a short cut to load volume settings (B). on my computer some how the volume settings are hidden (A). i have to go to control panel/hardware/sound/volume. I usually play this MMOG “CityofHeroes” here is a picture of my desktop
http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn248/coh_thirstbuster/images/mydesk.jpg
thanks
These two articles might help with your problem:
http://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-customize-notification-area
http://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-clean-notification-area-icon-cache
SHORTCUT REQUEST
Thank you very much for these very useful shortcuts.
You have a Network and Sharing Center shortcut.
When you open that there is a link on the left “Change adapter setings”
Would it be possible to create a shortcut directly to that link?
I realise this is only saving one click. But I want to be able to put this on users’ computers so that I do not have to explain where to click.
Thanks again.
We will try to post a major update to our library sometime next week. Thanks for the suggestions and don’t forget to pay us another visit.
You will find this in the new collection. 😀
Thank you!
I really think you should add shortcuts that:
Clear the Clipboard
Speak the Text on the Clipboard
Empty the Recycle Bin
Start up the Screensaver
and
Turn off the Monitor
Nice one it will help a lot
The Sleep shortcut puts my windows 7 ultimate into hibernate. Do I have to disable that for it to work?
Thanks.
As you can see from the link below: sleep is actually hybrid sleep in Windows 7 and it is very similar to hibernate. I’m not sure exactly what is your complaint. Can you please explain?
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/Windows7/Sleep-and-hibernation-frequently-asked-questions
I am trying to get a shortcut on my second computer with windows 7 to put it to sleep without using the start menu. I know, how lazy. My first computer has a sleep button on the keyboard (a little moon shaped button). That puts it to sleep and pressing a key on the keyboard the computer wakes up in a few seconds to the desktop. I tried the sleep shortcut I downloaded from this site and it puts it into hibernation and I have to press the power button. It then takes 30 seconds to full wake up and I have to click user name to login.
My second computers power button is not accessible without opening a security panel so I was hoping to wake it up with the keyboard. I also wake it up remotely so having to press the user to get back to the desktop is not an option.
Every other OS up to this point has had the ability to create a shortcut on the desk top to go into standby/sleep. Why can’t Windows 7??
Just trying to figure out if it’s possible. Why can the sleep button do it by not a desktop shortcut?
Thanks again,
Totally understand your point. I’ve searched and tested like crazy for the last 2 hours and i’ve found no solution. It seems that the shortcut we provided (according to documentation from Microsoft) puts your computer into Hybrid Sleep mode directly which is very similar to Hibernate and you need to press the power button to resume it.
For whatever reason, you cannot put the computer into sleep mode from the command line if hibernation is enabled. So, if you want our shortcut to work as you want to, you need to disable hibernation first, which is not a recommended solution.
The only alternative i could find is to use a third-party tool. Download PsShutdown from here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897541.aspx
Then create a shortcut to psshutdown.exe and use the parameter “-d”. When you run that shortcut it should go into normal sleep mode.
Hope this helps.
I will give it a try, thanks.
Very thanks
thanks, nice shortcuts
I find the link to these shortcuts, but cannot find a way to get them into a convenient printing format. It appears that I would have to open each tip separately and print them individually. Am I missing something here?
I don’t get it. Why you would like to print a shortcut? I am really confused. What exactly are you trying to do?
No, No!! I am not wanting to print an individual shortcut. That is all I see the ability to do now. I want to print the list of 99 shortcuts (as a list) to save on paper and refer to on occasion to refresh my memory on any that I have forgotten about.
You can’t. What you’d have to do is to look at each shortcut’s properties, and copy and paste it’s command line into an editor. But that’s only useful if you’re trying to understand the shortcut, rather that just using it.
DUH!!! Upon revisiting this site, it comes to me that these are – what are they – Windows shortcuts? I have been thinking keyboard shortcuts all this time. (ctrl-C, ctrl-P, etc.) No wonder I was confused. I may be slow, but at least I'm pointed in the right direction. To those who tried to explain this to me – thanks much for your efforts and patience.
Here’s a neat tip. To show ALL Control Panel links, use the following command:
C:Windowsexplorer.exe shell:::{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
Try it, you’ll like it!
how to download the list. There is no link for downloading
At the very end of the article there is the download link. At the bottom.
Love your post!
Btw we do think on the same wave-length, do we not 😉