Removing the GIGNORMUS short-cut arrows

[El Guru (Al)]

I have some really nice custom desktop short-cut icons since Windows XP. However Windows Vista places these huge 'arrows' on the icons that take almost 1/4 of the entire icon. After a little searching I found a free application that not only removes these arrows but also will make it default behaviour NOT to add the 'short cut to' pre-fix to the short-cut name.

Be warned though, side-effects are generally mild but may include:

• Conflicts with Favorite Links in the Navigation Pane in Windows Explorer
• Conflicts with Game Explorer

This is suppose to work with XP as well. You can also bypass the log-off/reboot regiment to make the changes take effect by simply killing explorer.exe via task manager and then restarting explorer.exe as a new task.

Here is the article: Disable Shortcut Icon Arrow Overlay in Windows Vista.

[Ryan Wagner]

Huh, I just went to look at my Vista desktop to see how big the shortcut arrows are, and it turns out I don't have any shortcuts on there. I did add a shortcut to try it out, and I didn't think that they're that big. Maybe you have larger icons than I do though.

[El Guru (Al)]

Huh, I just went to look at my Vista desktop to see how big the shortcut arrows are, and it turns out I don't have any shortcuts on there. I did add a shortcut to try it out, and I didn't think that they're that big. Maybe you have larger icons than I do though.

Not sure, I am running 1440x900 resolution and may be I enabled larger icons.

[spock1982 (Ernie)]

Huh, I just went to look at my Vista desktop to see how big the shortcut arrows are, and it turns out I don't have any shortcuts on there. I did add a shortcut to try it out, and I didn't think that they're that big. Maybe you have larger icons than I do though.

I agree. my arrows are rather small. Must have something to do with the icon size?

[Ryan Wagner]

For comparison sake here's what my icon looks like:

[OldManDeath]

For comparison sake here's what my icon looks like:

Am i the only one not seeing Ryan's icon images?

[Richard]

For comparison sake here's what my icon looks like:

Am i the only one not seeing Ryan's icon images?

Never saw the image aswell so just pasted imageshack link in firefox to see if would load on its own but it did not show then either

[El Guru (Al)]

Nada here.

[Richard]

I can see it now (Must of been an imageshack problem)

[El Guru (Al)]

For comparison sake here's what my icon looks like:

Well that is funky because here is mine...



your icons appear to be larger than mine, how is that?

[IceDogg]

Just guessing, but could it have something to do with desktop resolution? It changes odd things sometimes.

[Richard]

Just guessing, but could it have something to do with desktop resolution? It changes odd things sometimes.

Or is it because of this other then that or said before i can't say:

[El Guru (Al)]

Just guessing, but could it have something to do with desktop resolution? It changes odd things sometimes.

Or is it because of this other then that or said before i can't say:

I cain't seem to locate icon size settings in Vista.

[Ryan Wagner]

Try clicking on your desktop, holding down the Control key and using the scrollwheel on your mouse to resize the desktop icons. It's possible that you shrunk them at some point. Alternatively you can right-click on your desktop, go to View, and select Medium icons. That is what mine are set at.

[El Guru (Al)]

Okay the second part (View) worked. Mine were set to 'Classic'.