I use Launchy and so have no need for program launch icons, be it on the Desktop or Quick Launch or Windows Start. I don’t even use the Quick Launch toolbar and all I knew until recently was that you add a quick launch icon by dragging any program (or a shortcut pointing to that program) into the toolbar.

Today, when I accidentally deleted one of the quick launch icons of a machine not belonging to me, I found the obscure location of the quick launch icons:

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

(APPDATA is an environment variable which can be found by typing echo %APPDATA% at the command prompt.)

I checked it on Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server, but it is possible that this location is preserved across OSs. I can’t fathom the reason behind placing quick launch icons in the APPDATA folder belonging to the Internet Explorer. Some might consider it harmless, but say when a custom slipstream installation of Windows is made where the Internet Explorer is not installed, it is possible that Quick Launch is also gone. The location is senseless and a bug, whatever maybe its priority. It is just a tiny example of bad software.

While there are tools that can help you clean your quick launch cache, etc., if you are not a complete newbie the best way would be to navigate to the Quick Launch folder and see the various files present in that folder (mostly .LNK or shortcut files). You could see for yourself if the files are wrongly pointing to any dead or moved links and update them if necessary. You can also add your own shortcuts directly using Right Click –> New –> Shortcut.

Environment variables are a set of dynamic variables that can determine the environment in which a process runs. While they are more easily visible and often used in Unix-based OSs, they are equally essential on Windows. A little knowledge is especially important to write batch programs (.BAT).

The command env typed in your command prompt or Cygwin terminal will list the entire set of environment variables and their current values. My Computer –> Properties –> Advanced –> Environment Variables will also show you the Windows environment variables divided into two categories: System variables and User variables.

While on cmd each variable can be referred to using %ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE%, on Cygwin and all Unix-based OSs they are referred to using $ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE. ($ echo %ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE% or $ echo $ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE)

ALLUSERSPROFILE, APPDATA, COMPUTERNAME, HOMEDRIVE, HOMEPATH, PATH, PROGRAMFILES, SYSTEMDRIVE, SystemRoot, USERNAME, USERPROFILE, WINDOWS are a some important environment variables some of which may be modified and are usually quite useful while writing batch programs. OS, NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS, PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE, PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER, PROCESSOR_LEVEL are a few other interesting variables which are best left untouched.

$ set ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE=value can be used to change an existing or define a new environment variable.

Image Source: Microsoft Windows on my desktop.