Tip of the Month (July 2004)

Removing Shortcuts

When downloading a form from the Visual CE development environment (FILE | DOWNLOAD FORM), Visual CE always puts a shortcut in the START | PROGRAMS menu on the handheld so you can easily run the form. But there are situations where you don't want these shortcuts.

To remove a the shortcuts, just do this:

1. Connect your handheld to your desktop.
2. Run ActiveSync on the desktop.
3. Click the "Explore" button
4. Double-click on "My Pocket PC"
5. Double-click on "Windows"
6. Double-click on "Start Menu" (not "StartUp")
7. Double-click on "Programs"

Each icon shown is one shortcut on START | PROGRAMS. Just delete the shortcuts you don't want.

Of course, when you use Visual CE's FILE | DOWNLOAD FORM Visual CE will recreate the shortcut. You can prevent Visual CE from creating the shortcut by:

1. Select FILE | DOWNLOAD form
2. Navigate the to folder you want to download to and specify the file name
3. Before you press the OK button, hold down the SHIFT key on your keyboard
4. While still holding down the SHIFT key on your keyboard, click OK

Visual CE will download the form but will not create the shortcut.

Note: If you never want the Visual CE desktop environment to create a shortcut (regardless of whether the SHIFT key is up or down), copy the VisualCE.ini file from your installation folder (usually c:\Program Files\Windows CE Services\SYWARE Visual CE\VisualCE.ini) to your windows folder and, using a text editor like notepad, add the following two lines:

[File]
Shortcut=0