While Windows power users like to get technical and perform personalizations like replacing the task manager with a more powerful program, plenty of people are still trying to find their way through basic Windows tasks.

If you're new to Windows or still learning to use computers more efficiently in general, here's how to create a desktop shortcut from anywhere.

To create a shortcut to a program or file on your desktop, browse to it using Windows Explorer and right-click on the file. In the popup menu, choose Send to and then Desktop (create shortcut). This will place a shortcut to your chosen file right on your desktop for easy access.

If you like to keep a clean desktop and don't want a lot of icons around, you can instead choose Create shortcut from the right-click menu. This places the shortcut in the same location as the original file, though, so be sure to move it somewhere useful and easily accessible (like your Start menu, or Taskbar).

Once your shortcut is made, you can right-click it and choose Rename to give it a friendlier name if you like. Once you've got your shortcut created, you're good to go! Shortcuts let you access any file or program much faster than manually hunting them down. Learn to use them and you'll cut out lots of wasted time.

Looking to keep it simple? Check out some great and easy Windows tricks.

What shortcuts do you always have handy? Let us know how you use shortcuts every day in the comments below!

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