Those annoying shortcut arrows: How to remove

To remove those you need The Ultimate Windows Tweaker and yes, in spite of what it says in the window above, it does also work in Windows 8. You do however need to download older versions of the dot Net framework, because it
uses those. But as you see in the screenshot, there's no arrows on my shortcuts and it also does many, many other things, hence the name 'Ultimate'. For example, it puts the Windows version and Build number in the lower right corner of the screen, if you wish. It was made for Windows 7, but it works in Windows 8 because Windows 8 is built on Windows 7's proven framework, and there's a
lot of Windows 7 in it. - Now including, on mine, The Ultimate Windows Tweaker. And you can still have one too, in case you want to be a Tweaker. It's fun!

And now that you know how to remove those arrows from shortcuts, maybe you'd like to create some new system shortcuts for the Desktop, so that you can change their icons, or whatever, so here's the tutorial on that and once again, it works equally well in Windows 8. If you look at this screenshot for the icon for Control Panel, it was made with these instructions (and my own custom icon).