Why can't I change the icons displayed on the desktop.

Why for Excel, Word, Outlook and IE you are not given the ability to change
the desktop shortcut icon in the properties window? I have customized my
desktop except for these. They look silly with the other icons I have.

Desktop icons are silly in the first place, and secondly, this is not an Office question, but one for your operating system.

--�
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

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After furious head scratching, theBureau asked:

| Why for Excel, Word, Outlook and IE you are not given the ability to
| change the desktop shortcut icon in the properties window? I have
| customized my desktop except for these. They look silly with the
| other icons I have. o

On Sun, 9 Mar 2008 12:36:02 -0700, theBureau
<theBureau@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Why for Excel, Word, Outlook and IE you are not given the ability to change
>the desktop shortcut icon in the properties window? I have customized my
>desktop except for these. They look silly with the other icons I have.

I don't know the details, but there seem to be two different kinds of shortcuts,
one customizable and the other not.

To get a customizable one, locate the executable file (typically in C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11 where the number at the end changes by version),
right-click it, and choose Send To > Desktop (as shortcut).

Delete the noncustomizable shortcut, and ignore the warning about "deleting this
shortcut doesn't remove the application".

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
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