WEEDING OUT THE DEAD SHORTCUTS

Windows 9x provides these great little handles to get a hold of files buried deep within our directories--shortcuts. Windows 9x doesn't, however, keep track of the files that the shortcuts point to. If I have a shortcut that points to c:\docs\mydocument.doc and then I move the file to e:\old_docs\mydocument.doc, the shortcut fails to work.

Pretty soon, you may find yourself with a whole host of these dead shortcuts cluttering up your Windows system, pointing to nothing more than where a file once stood. Help is at hand in the form of the Windows 98 Resource Kit. To install the Reskit, insert the Windows 98 CD, open Windows Explorer, navigate to Tools\Reskit, and run Setup.exe.

Once the Reskit is installed, use the Explorer to navigate to Program Files\Win98RK. Here you will find Checklinks.exe, which executes the Link Check Wizard. This wizard will locate all the dead shortcuts on
your system and then walk you through removing the shortcuts all at once or selectively deleting them.