How do I create drag-and-drop desktop icons for Office 2003 apps?

[John]

I'm running Office 2003 under Windows XP Pro.

I have created desktop icons for Word 2003 and Excel 2003 because I use
them most often. The icons were copied from the Start Menu items for
each app. Double-clicking the icons starts the apps just fine, but if I
try to drag-and-drop a document onto the icons to open it, nothing
happens. I've noticed that the properties of the start menu items don't
point to an executable, e.g. the properties for Microsoft Office Word
2003 show the target as Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, and
this is grey rather than black and cannot be changed. What am I doing
wrong here?

Thanks!

John

 

[Beth Melton]

You aren't necessarily doing anything wrong - they modified the Office
shortcuts to use OSA.exe (Office Startup Assistant) in order to start
Office programs faster.

All you need to do is replace the shortcuts the Office installation
create with shortcuts to the executables (*.exe) for the applications.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/