Windows 7 - fast route to Bath Spa University phone book

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Set up a Desktop / Keyboard Shortcut to Bath Spa University Information

This performance should produce a desktop shortcut that allows you to search for an individual's phone number with a single click or key combination. It will take you a couple of minutes to set this up. Here's instructions to create the shortcut, and set a shortcut key combination to run it:

Create the desktop shortcut

Right mouse click on your computer desktop (a 'Neutral' part of the screen) and choose 'New/Shortcut'.

Shortcuts run programs - we'll do just that

For the shortcut field 'Location of the item', select the following string, and copy and paste it to the shortcut dialogue using a right mouse click and 'Copy' etc

%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe dsquery.dll,OpenQueryWindow

Give the shortcut a name

Select 'Next' and call the shortcut 'People search' or somesuch - then finish off - the shortcut appears on your desktop, but it won't display a phone number yet

Set the shortcut to return names and phone numbers

This won't work until you've used the new shortcut to search for someone, so do just that, and it will display at least their name, like this:


Now use the 'View/Choose columns' menu in that window to choose the info you'd like to see:


To do this, select any columns you don't need and then 'Remove', after which choose the columns 'Telephone number' and 'Add' - and do the same for 'Logon name' - the shortcut will remember the changes you make here for future use.

Once you've found someone using this tool, you can right mouse click their name and select 'Properties' to discover, say, their email address.

This is optional: choose a shortcut icon

The default icon for this shortcut is ugly - right mouse click the shortcut, choose 'Properties' and then 'Change icon'. Browse to a file with more icons - you'll already be in the folder \system32\ so look for files called SHELL32.DLL and moreicons.dll - these have a collection of icons (most of which are rather dated unfortunately). Alternatively, use the one from 'magnify.exe' which at least indicates a search ... but do remember the quickest way to launch the search will be that shortcut key combination you will have set ...

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