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How to customize the Links bar on the Internet Explorer toolbar

Article ID: 171228 - View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q171228

You can use the Links bar in Windows Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 6 to create shortcuts to websites that you frequently go to. This article describes how to customize the Links bar.

Add a shortcut to the Links bar

Move, rename, or delete a shortcut

Open webpages from outside Internet Explorer

You can create Internet shortcuts that let you open webpages without having to first start Internet Explorer. These shortcuts automatically open a browser window. Use one or both of the following methods.

Add an Internet shortcut to the desktop

Internet shortcuts are desktop icons that open websites instead of programs or files. They display the webpage icon for the linked site plus the Windows shortcut symbol (blue curved arrow).

To add an Internet shortcut to the desktop, follow these steps:

In Internet Explorer, go to the website that you want to link to.
Drag the webpage icon from the Address bar to an empty area on the desktop.

Note The linked website automatically opens in a separate browser window.

To make Internet shortcuts easy to distinguish from other shortcuts, group them separately, or put them into their own folder. To put them into their own folder, follow these steps:

Right-click anywhere on the desktop, point to New, and then click Folder.
Immediately type a name for the new folder. For example, type Websites.
Drag any Internet shortcuts that you have already created to the new folder. If you want, drag the folder to another location on the desktop.

Now, you can drag a webpage icon from the Address bar in Internet Explorer to the shortcut folder instead of to an empty desktop area. You can do this whether the shortcut folder is open or closed (just an icon).

Add a Links bar to the taskbar

If you are using Windows Desktop Update, you can add a Links bar to the taskbar. The Links bar lets you go to a website even if an Internet shortcut on the desktop is hidden behind an open window. Or, you can use just the Links bar to help reduce the clutter of icons on the desktop.

To add a Links bar to the taskbar, right-click the taskbar, point to Toolbars, and then click Links.

Note The Links bar appears on the taskbar as the word Links.

For more information about how to add the Windows Desktop Update component in Windows 95 or in Windows NT 4.0, click the following article number to go to the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

165695

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/165695/ )

How to Add or Remove Windows Desktop Update