Eliminating Shortcut Arrows

[Cotton]

I've used TweakUI to set my displays on my systems to eliminate the shortcut arrows for desktop icons that normally have them, but for some reason, the arrows have reappeared and TweakUI is unable to eliminate them. One system is Win98 and the other is Win98SE, and TweakUI, even after rebuilding icons is unable to remove the pesky little arrows. Anyone have an idea how to get them off the display - with or without TweakUI?

[jscher2000]

I found these in a Google search:
<img src=/w3timages/greenline.gif width=33% height=2>
Q: How can I get rid of the horrible shortcut arrows from my icons?
A: There are 3 methods:

1. <LI>The easiest is to use the latest release of TWEAKUI which is a Microsoft "Powertoy" for Windows 95. Some people find this application unreliable.
   <LI>Use Microangelo Engineer.
   <LI>If all else fails, you can edit the registry manually. Open regedit. Click on the + to expand HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Find the key lnkfile and click on it. Delete the value ISshortcut. Find the key Piffile and click on it. Delete the value ISshortcut. Note: will not work with Windows 98.

<img src=/w3timages/greenline.gif width=33% height=2>
This method was submitted thanks to Michael Monahan (mm45@bellsouth.net).
"To safely hack the registry to permanently remove those funky little shortcut arrows, without adversely affecting your program shortcuts in any way, start Regedit and go to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTLnkfile
and to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTPiffile
In each of these folders the right hand pane has the "IsShortcut" String. Right-click on it, select Rename, and change it to read "IsNotShortcut" (no quotes). Close Regedit and reboot. The arrows are gone now, but Windows still sees all the affected icons as shortcuts and treats them accordingly!"
<img src=/w3timages/greenline.gif width=33% height=2>
But it is odd that TweakUI should stop working. I read in one of various pages I quickly skimmed that it substitutes a transparent image for the arrow image. I didn't find how, whether it changes a file name somewhere, or actually changes a file, but that might bear further exploration if that's how it works.

[R2]

This problem usually occurs after the March 7th "Critical Update" from Microsoft. See this thread on the subject.

This is my quote from that thread:

This is a well known problem with the update. Open regedit and delete the "IsShortcut" value for these two keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTpiffile
HKEY_CLAASES_ROOTlnkfile

This first one is for DOS shortcuts within Windows (like batch files) and the second is for Windows shortcuts. The second one is "LNKFILE" -- in case it is hard to read.

Removing the "IsShortcut" value gets rid of the little arrows. If you find any more, search your registry for any more "IsShortcut" values and delete them.
____________

There is no specific reason to create an "IsNotShortcut" value -- since this value has no meaning to Windows, it is simply ignorred.

[R2]

I have been thinking about this, and this is somewhat strange. But I think I have figured out the only way I can make sense out of all of this. The update of March 7, 2002 definitely replaces the Shell32.dll file. Well, as some of us know, the Shell32.dll file holds a lot of icons for Windows -- see below. Most importantly, it holds the shortcut arrow icon (circled in red below).

I will bet that TweakUI used a "transparent bitmap" technique to remove the shortcut arrow -- and NOT the "Is Shortcut" registry tweak. Presumably, the transparent bitmap was inside the shell32.dll file -- before it was replaced. On March 7, 2002, Microsoft issued a Critical Update which replaced the shell32.dll file. This BROKE TweakUI's ability to make the transparent bitmap -- because the new shell32.dll file (version 4.72.3812.600) no longer held the transparent bitmap!

So when TweakUI tried to remove the arrow by substituting a transparent image, the function was broken. HOWEVER, you can still remove the arrows the old fashion way -- by removing the "IsShortcut" value in the registry.

I hope this makes sense to at least one other human being!! ;-]

[Cotton]

Thanks for the help, everyone. Just like MS to issue a "Critical Update" that breaks something else entirely. I've removed the flags you mention and voila!

Cotton

[R2]

I need to make a correction. There can be problems with removing the "IsShortcut" registry value. Please see my posts (R2) here.

Several strange things seem to occur, but one of the most annoying is the duplicate ContextMenu items demonstrated here.

Given the fact that replacing the shell32.dll REVERSES the March 7, 2002 Critical Update and given the fact that removing the "IsShortcut" value can have unexpected consequences, the only viable choice is to draw the arrow in all transparent pixels. I did that in the post here. It is specifically for Win9x at the present time.

I can see no other way to eliminate the arrows...