Create desktop shortcut Windows 8.1

[1eyedjack]

Hello

New to Windows 8. Forgive please.

I have a program installed - Amazon Kindle reader. From the new-style view I can run this problem successfully, by swiping upward on restart, and it is listed in the installed programs. Tap on it and it runs. So far so good.

I wish to create a shortcut to it from the desktop, and here I have a problem. For most programs I can do this by long pressing on the icon. Then one of the options that appears is "open file location". I do this, and from the resulting window I am able to send a shortcut to the desktop.

But this particular icon (and some others) does not behave like this. If I long-press on the icon I just get three options: Pin to task bar, Pin to start, or uninstall. No "open file location".

Having pinned it to the taskbar I cannot from there find an option to send a shortcut to the desktop.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

I don't know Windows 8.x, or how it differs from Windows 7. Can't you just right-click on the original program executable and right-click drag-and-drop it to the desktop (create shortcut) - the same way it has been since Windows 95?

[1eyedjack]

This should work. Only I cannot find the program file by searching in file explorer. wierd

[bludgard]

Try going to Program Files / Program Files x86 Folder(s) (whichever is apropriate) to find the executable(s).

Edit: One will find these folders on the system drive

[Alan2273]

If you are using 8.1, right click on the flag in the bottom left corner, left click file explorer, in the search box type the name of what program you are looking for, (Amazon Kindle), press enter, then drag and drop the relevant icon to your desktop.

That is the way I do it when the right click does not give me a desktop option.

[1eyedjack]

Hi. Thanks I already tried all of these. it found a file described as a shortcut called "com.amazon.kindle" (no other extension) in an appdata folder. Nothing happened when I tried to run it. I searched the whole of the c drive, which included (visible) folders programs and program (x86) for string "kindle" and nothing .exe was found. I suppose that the file may not have kindle in the name. Or it may be in a hidden folder.

[bludgard]

Look in *user*\local\amazon\kindle\application.

[1eyedjack]

OK I have found a whole load of files with the string "kindle" in the file name. None of them have a .exe extension. Several of them have a .js extension, which I understand to mean javascript. Are these executables? If so I still don't know which one is launched by the existing launch icons. I suppose I could just try each in turn, but seems to me that could be a bit dangerous.

I am making a big assumption that the application to launch kindle actually has the text string "kindle" embedded somewhere in its file name, and there is no certainty of that.

Rather than solve this particular case (although I am keen to do that also) I would prefer to have a generic method to identify the location and file name of ANY launchable icon shown in the new-style Windows 8 non-desktop screen, as well as an explanation for why some but not all of them present an option to "open file location" when you right-click on it (or long press on a touchscreen). Maybe I need a third party utility to manage that sort of thing? Any recommendations?