Edge website shortcut on desktop

The change from Microsoft Internet Explorer to Microsoft Edge has generally been a really good thing. Not many people were sad when MSIE ended up as simply a part of computer history after years of it being problematic for so, so many Web site designers and online companies. Just about everythings better in MS Edge with Windows 10 particularly the latest release! and theres not much reason to look back at all. Except, as it happens, with Web shortcuts.

For reasons I cannot explain, Microsoft decided that people didnt actually use Shortcuts and just axed that functionality right out of the Edge application. Whats odd is that its based on Google Chrome [well, Chromium] and Chrome for Windows does include drag-to-make-shortcut functionality. But sure enough. Microsoft Edge no longer lets you drag and drop to create shortcuts.

In fact, if you try, you just get a red no symbol for your efforts that vanishes once you release the mouse button:

To create Web shortcuts now, you can either use a different Web browser or you can use the Shortcut creation tool built into Windows 10. Since its likely youve never done the latter, lets do just that. Its easy.

Simply right click anywhere on your Desktop and choose New > Shortcut:

That pops up a window with a skeleton of a Web shortcut. Youll have to do the work of specifying the associated URL, but thats okay. Youll start out with this:

Now pop over to Edge and copy the page Web address from the address bar. Once its in the copy/paste buffer, click back to the Create Shortcut window and simply paste in the URL [Control-V or Edit > Paste]:

For this demo, Im using the MSN soccer news page //www.msn.com/en-us/sports/soccer

Once youve typed in or pasted in the Web page address, click on Next to get to the shortcut naming screen:

You can see Im giving my own Web page shortcut the mnemonic name ofMSN Soccer. A click onFinish and I have a new icon on my Windows Desktop:

But while were at it, lets change that icon. You cant pick an arbitrary picture but there are a lot of built-in icons from which to choose [most of which are kind of old school office images]. Right click on the new Shortcut and youll get this:

No big surprise; click or tap onChange Icon and you can pick from the gallery of images shown. Ill pick a star since theres no soccer ball. The results are lookin good:

And thats how its done. Now a simple click or tap and the MSN Soccer News page pops right up in Microsoft Edge:

So its a bit more tedious than just dragging and dropping onto the Desktop, but since you probably arent creating shortcuts a dozen times each day, its definitely doable and being able to customize the icon is just a nice little bonus. Now about the latest soccer news

Pro Tip: Ive been writing about Windows forever. Please check out my massive Windows help pages area for lots of useful tutorials while youre here!