Shortcut to Add/Remove Programs

Topic

New Reply

Hi there,

I thoght like me, many of you (especially readers of this list) might find going all the way to Start | Settings | Control Panel | Add / Remove Programs tiresome and having a shortcut to Add / Remove programs may prove handy. Maybe there is a cleaner way to do this, but it does the trick for me. I’m using Windows XP.

1) Browse your way to C:Windowssystem32
2) Right click on appwiz.cpl | Copy
3) Go to the folder of your preference (eg. Desktop), right click on an empty area | Paste shortcut.
4) [Optional] Rename the resulting file to give it a more meaningful name (eg. “Remove Apps”).
5) [Optional] Place the shortcut on your Quick Launch Toolbar.

Note: you can fire up the wizard directly with
Start | Run | appwiz.cpl
(if you’re about as lazy as me you can go to the Run prompt directly by typing Windows Key + r; what becomes really uncomfortable is having to type not only the ugly “appwiz” but also the “.cpl” part, as opposed to beautiful “Winword” that suffices to launch MS Word — there’s where the real utility of the shortcut shows)

Enjoy the (rest of the) weekend!

Reply | Quote

Replies

You could also just place a shortcut that you dragged from the control panel onto your desktop, or even a batchfile ‘Start C:WindowsSystem32appwiz.cpl’
Thanks for the eye-opener though

Reply | Quote

Hi Danny,

My first approach was writing a batch file, but I’m nearly batch-illiterate. My attempts were

~~~~ First try:
C:WindowsSystem32appwiz.cpl
Result: it’s annoying that the command prompt window stays there.

~~~~ Second try:
@echo off
C:WindowsSystem32appwiz.cpl

Result: the window is still there, although it’s now clear. I thought of a shortcut and quitted batching.

The “Start” command does what I wanted to do, thanks!
And I didn’t know I could drag from the Control Panel either .

Reply | Quote

You can also use the right-click>Send To>Desktop (create shortcut) method to do this.

Reply | Quote

Yes, it’s another alternative. In my case I’ve removed the Desktop shortcut from the SendTo folder, but it would have been useful for this.

Reply | Quote

yet one more alternative.

In Win XP, I have the Control Panel on my Start Menu showing its own submenu – kind of like the All Programs menu and its submenus. I believe this is an option in versions of Win before XP also.

When I right click on Add/Remove, I get a 3-item menu that includes “Create Shortcut”. When I click on that, I get a dialog box that says the shortcut already exists but would I like a shortcut on the Desktop instead. Button choices are Yes or No. If I pick Yes,…

Fred

Reply | Quote