Registry tweak to remove arrows Shortcuts in Windows Vista

When creating a shortcut, you will notice that there is an arrow appeared on top of it. In fact this shortcut arrow is an overlay, which is stored in the master icon file named as shell32.dll located at C:\Windows\System32. If you don’t like this arrow to be shown on the shortcut, there is a way for you to create a shortcut without showing the arrow key.

Each of icons created has a shortcut number associated with it, which is 29. In order to remove the arrow from the shortcut, we will redirect number 29 to a different master icon file through simple registry
hack:

1. Click on Start button, then type regedit
in the search bar, then hit enter key.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer.

3. Right click on Explorer, choose New -> Key, and name the new key as Shell Icons.

4. Right click on Shell Icons, choose New -> String Value, then name it as 29.

5. On the right panel, double click on 29 and assign it with the value as %SystemRoot%\\noarrow.ico,0.

6. Download noarrow.ico, save it to root directory, C:\Windows\.

7. In order to make it effective of the registry changes, logoff from the computer
and login again.

Once above steps are done, you will notice that all shortcuts created previously or any newly created shortcuts no longer have arrow attached to it.