Excel Desktop Shortcut

The most basic procedure for putting the Excel startup at your fingertips is to put an Excel shortcut icon pointing to the Excel program's executable file on your computer's desktop. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button on the Windows taskbar and then select Search on the Start menu.
2. Select the All Files and Folders link in the Search Companion task pane.
3. Type excel.exe in the All or Part of the File Name text box and then click the Search button.
4. Right-click EXCEL.EXE in the main pane of the Search Results dialog box and then choose Send To → Desktop (Create Shortcut) from the file's shortcut menu.
5. Click the Close button in the upper-right corner of the Search Results dialog box to close it.

As soon as you close the Search Results dialog box, you will see that Windows has added a Microsoft Office Excel 2003 desktop shortcut. You can, if you wish, rename this icon to something more manageable - such as Excel 2003 - by rightclicking the icon and then deleting the redundant Microsoft Officepart.

To launch Excel from your computer's desktop, simply double-click the (Microsoft Office) Excel 2003 desktop shortcut icon.