Sometimes you arrive on a web site that you absolutely want to come back to over-and-over again, but you don’t want to find it in a list of favorites. To get quick access to a web site you can put a shortcut on your desktop. When you are on the page you want to create a web shortcut to just right-click the page, and left-click Create Shortcut.

Now Internet Explorer will ask "Do you want to put a shortcut to this website on your desktop?" Click Yes.

There is a second way. Shrink your Internet Explorer window. Use the restore button in the upper right corner of Internet Explorer, then grab and edge and make the window smaller until you can see an empty space on the desktop.

Now go to the address bar and left click the "e" just like you see below. Hold the left mouse button down and drag the shortcut web address out to the desktop.

Now let go of the left mouse button, and you’ve got your shortcut. Right-click the shortcut and rename it if you need to. To access the web site again simply double click the shortcut, and the site loads.

If you’ve used Windows in the past, but are now using Windows Vista, you may have noticed the Internet Explorer shortcut icon is missing from the desktop. The IE (Internet Explorer) shortcut allowed you to launched the IE web browser, and allowed easy access to the Internet Options page by right-clicking and choosing Properties.

When you right click the IE shortcut you see the option "Start Without Add-ons." This feature can be used for troubleshooting problems with IE, like unexplained crashes which might be related to an Add-on.

To put the IE icon on the desktop you’ll need to hack the registry. We’ve supplied a fully written registry file below to make it easier.

Manual Registry Hack

Open regedit.exe using the Start menu search or run box, and then navigate down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER’Software’Microsoft’Windows’CurrentVersion
’Explorer’HideDesktopIcons’NewStartPanel

In the right-hand pane, add a new 32-bit DWORD value with the following name and value:

Key Name: {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}

Value: 0

Now right-click on the desktop and choose Refresh, and your new IE desktop icon should appear.

Downloadable Registry Hack

Use the link below to download the registry hack file, then double-click the file. The registry information will automatically be entered into the Windows registry. Now either right-click the desktop and choose refresh for the IE desktop icon to appear, log off and log back on, or restart Windows.

If for some reason you chose to remove the IE desktop icon simply right-click, then choose Delete.

Download AddIEIconToDesktop Registry Hack