If you see in Windows, icons for shortcuts has a little arrow to make you understand that what you’re looking at is a shortcut. Even though the arrow are smaller than in some previous versions of Windows, they are not attractive. Surprisingly, they are pretty easy to remove.

Removing those arrow requires a twist to the Windows Registry.These methods should work in Windows 7 onward.

Edit The Registry Manually

While it is not a easiest way, you can edit the registry yourself without downloading or running any 3rd party software. You can also use the Registry to bring back the over sized arrow from the Windows Vista style, just in case if you want.

Since we are going to make changes to the Registry, we would know about the warning; Registry Editor is a powerful tool and you can certainly change things that would render your system unstable or even inoperable. This is a simple hack that anyone can do, as long as you stick to the instructions. If you’ve never worked with it before,and definitely back up the Registry before making changes.

1. To get started, open the Registry Editor by hitting Start and typing ‘regedit.’

2. Press Enter to open Registry Editor and give it permission to make changes to your PC.

3. In the Registry Editor, use the left sidebar to navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

4. Look through the Explorer key and see if there is a subkey named Shell Icons. If there is not, you will need to create it by right-clicking the Explorer folder icon, choosing New > Key, and naming it Shell Icons.

5. Next, you are going to create a new value inside the Shell Icons key. Right click the Shell Icons folder icon and choose New > String Value. Name the new value 29.

6. Now, you are going to modify that value. Double-click the new 29 value and type (you can also copy-paste) the following into the ‘Value data’ box to remove arrows from shortcut icons:

%windir%\System32\shell32.dll,-50

Click OK and exit Registry Editor.

7. You will need to restart your computer (or log off and back on) to see the changes.

8. If you want to bring the arrows back, just delete the 29 value you created. You can leave the Shell Icons key as in place.

For Replacing The Small Arrow To Vista Style Large Arrow

They are huge and kind of ugly, but there would be no mistaking which icons were shortcuts. Just use this string for the value on the 29 key you created:

%windir%\System32\shell32.dll,-16769

Then, once again, close Registry Editor and restart your computer to see the changes that you wants.

Thanks for trying a new things. Subscribe your mail in my blog for more tips n tricks.