Most people open an application in windows through the Start menu or by clicking on a shortcut on their desktop. Starting an application from Start menu takes a few clicks and as for the desktop, it could be hidden if you have an open folder.

Windows XP has a way, that many people are not aware of, by which you can quickly access your most used applications and documents from any folder.

The trick is to add a links toolbar. Here is how you do it.

Open My Computer (You could actually open any folder for that matter). Right-click the toolbar and then click Links. You now have the Links toolbar on your windows. Just make sure that Lock the Toolbars is not checked. If it is, uncheck it so that you can move the Links toolbar to make it fully visible.

Now that you have the Links toolbar, you can add your favorite applications or documents to the toolbar. Navigate to the application or document you want to add and drag and drop its icon to the Links toolbar. By doing so you are actually creating shortcuts to the apps/documents. By default the shortcuts are named Shortcut to ApplicationName. You can easily rename them by right-clicking on them and choosing Rename.

That’s it. Now you can open your favorite applications/documents from any window with a single click.

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