Disable the ‘- Shortcut’ Text Addition for Shortcuts in Windows 11???

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System:  Windows 11 Home 23H2

I want to remove the “Shortcut” text from shortcuts I create.  I tried 2 methods in registry, neither of which work.

(1) HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

Ensure that “link” is set to all zeros

(2)HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\NamingTemplates

Create a key “ShortcutNameTemplate” and set its value to “%s.lnk”

In both cases I restarted the laptop.

Any other suggestions?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Sueska

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You should take a look at Winaero Tweaker

It has an entry to remove the “Shortcut” text. I believe it is for both Win 10 and Win 11.

The Download link for the zip file is HERE

 

 

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On win 7, if you create an shortcut and manually remove the “- shortcut” suffix 5 times it stops adding that to shortcuts.

Win11 does not ‘learn’ like that ?

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Your problem is the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer link key needs to remain set to its default value of 1e 00 00 00 not all zeros.

See Disable the ‘- Shortcut’ Text Addition for Shortcuts in Windows 11.

BTW, the change takes effect immediately, you don’t need to sign out or restart Windows.

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n0ads wrote:

Your problem is the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer link key needs to remain set to its default value of 1e 00 00 00 not all zeros.

See Disable the ‘- Shortcut’ Text Addition for Shortcuts in Windows 11.

BTW, the change takes effect immediately, you don’t need to sign out or restart Windows.

Sorry, but changing from all zeros to    ie 00 00 00   did not work. Nor did the method described at the link you provided.

 

Any other ideas?  Could this be because I have Win 11 “Home”?

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edsel1924 wrote:

Could this be because I have Win 11 “Home”?

No, this hack works for all versions of Windows going back to Windows Visa!

As explained in the link I posted, the way Windows adds – Shortcut to new shortcuts is by using a “template“.

That template is called ShortcutNameTemplate and is located in the registry at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\NamingTemplates

The default value of that key is…

"%s - Shortcut.lnk"

…and here’s how it works.

Whenever you create a new shortcut, the name you entered for it (i.e. Test) replaces the %s in that template and the actual name Windows assigns to it becomes Test – Shortcut.lnk (Note: Windows is configured to always hide .lnk extensions).

The hack works by removing the – Shortcut part of the template value so it’s.

"%s.lnk"

Now when you create a new shortcut, the name you entered for it (i.e. Test) still replaces the %s in that template but, since the “extra text” is missing, the actual name Windows assigns to it is now Test.lnk without the – Shortcut.

Note: this hack only applies to new shortcuts! It will not remove – Shortcut from existing shortcuts; you have to manually “rename” them to do that.

So, if it’s not working for you when you create new shortcuts, you should first verify the changes you made were the right ones, applied to the right keys, in the right registry location and that they still exist.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
     link = 1e 00 00 00

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\NamingTemplates
     ShortcutNameTemplate = "%s.lnk"
                            Note: it must include the double quotes.

If they were set correctly but keep reverting back to their default values, then something on your PC is resetting them when you reboot.

If they’re still set correctly to prevent – Shortcut from being added to the end of new shortcuts, then you’ve got some sort of software, “other that Windows“, that’s controlling the names for your new shortcuts.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Sueska, Cybertooth

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Well, I feel pretty stupid.  I found my error!!!  I was changing the registry as Administrator so of course this was changing how shortcuts were created for the Administrator account.  But NOT for my local account where I do all my work.  So all I did was launch regedit without Administrator privileges, add ShortcutNamingTemplate,  and it works!!

Thank you for being patient with me.  Very much appreciated!!!!!!

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Cybertooth

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First I want to thank you for the topic edsel1924. I did not know that the pesky -shortcut label could be removed with a registry edit. Please don’t be hard on yourself. Glad you got it working. I totally misinterpreted the instructions, but surprisingly it still worked. I am not recommending anyone does it the way I used unless it can be verified that doing the way I stumbled onto is equivalent to the correct method. I left HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\link key at my default binary value of 15 00 00 00. Then at the following location HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer I created a new D_word 32 bit and named it NamingTemplates With hexademical base selected entered “%s.lnk” I guess for me, I needed more explicit instructions like: if the key does not exist make a new key at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer and name it NamingTemplates. At NamingTemplates create a new string value and name it ShortcutNameTemplate, modify it to add “%s.lnk” as the value.

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