Today we are going to talk about how to create a shortcut on your desktop.  A shortcut is an icon that sits on your desktop that, when clicked, launches the program for which it is associated.  Using shortcuts is a great way to speed up some common tasks that you might perform frequently.  Many people keep shortcuts for their web browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer), Microsoft Office applications like Word and Excel, or perhaps a shortcut to the folder that holds family pictures.

You may follow the video tutorial above by clicking on it, or the written tutorial which follows.

Click on the "START" menu in the bottom left corner of your screen and go to "Programs" as shown in the image below.

Next, locate the program you wish to make a shortcut for. For the case of this tutorial, we are going to select Mozilla Firefox.

Once you have found the program in the programs menu list, you will need to RIGHT click on the link that normally launches the program.
NOTE: It is important to click the RIGHT mouse button, not the LEFT mouse button that you would normally click to launch the program.

Navigate your mouse pointer to the "Send To" option in the newly populated menu as seen below.

Lastly, LEFT click on the option for "Desktop (create shortcut)".

You can now click anywhere on your desktop or click the START menu again to hide the menu system. Once that is done, you will be able to see that Windows has created a new desktop shortcut icon for you. You can double click the icon and it will launch the program for you without you having to worry about navigating through the complicated START menu system to find it.

One note of caution: it is probably a good idea not to create too many of these shortcuts as your desktop will become cluttered and difficult to locate things. That would defeat the whole purpose of a "shortcut"

And that's how you create a desktop shortcut in Windows XP.