Automatically add shortcut to USB drives on Windows desktop
Posted on September 11, 2009 at 5:15 am
Have you noticed that whenever you pop in your USB drive in Windows XP, it first scans it (autoplay) and then gives you a menu of options, such as transferring photos, playing files in Windows Media player, or opening a folder to view the files?
This list is automatically generated based on the type of content stored on your USB drive. This is great if you really use one of those options, but what if you always choose “Open folder to view files” or what if you disabled Autoplay?
Actually, starting with Windows Vista and on, Autoplay is now disabled by default because of the viruses and spyware that spread using this feature. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could plug in your drive and just have a link to it show up on your desktop instead of having to manually go to My Computer?
Desktop Media is a nifty little program that will automatically add drive icons to your desktop when you plug in a USB drive or removable drive.
Here are some of the main features of Desktop Media:
- Automatically detects new or already connected media and creates an icon on your desktop
- Ability to create soft links (shortcuts) or hard links (symbolic links)
- Supports not only removable drives, but also fixed, network, CD/DVD and RAM disk drives
- Ability to save the position of the icons
The program runs in the system tray and you can right-click on it to access the options:
In the options dialog, you can select which shortcuts you want to appear on the desktop and which drives to ignore that you do not want to show at all.
Overall, the program is useful for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users. It’s also useful if you have disabled Autoplay on XP (which you should have).
There is also another program very similiar to Desktop Media called Desk Drive, which also creates shortcuts to drives right on your desktop. Both programs have a good number of features and Desk Drive also has the ability to hide the tray icon also. Enjoy!
» Filed Under Free Software Downloads
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