Depending on how you have configured Windows, you may see a dialog window pop up when you connect an external drive or insert a CD or DVD into the computer’s DVD drive. But that’s about it when it comes to visible changes. If you want to access the contents of the drive, you need to open Windows Explorer or another file manager and browse to the assigned drive letter for the device.

While this may not be an issue for some Windows users, other may feel that it is not really comfortable enough, especially so if this happens multiple times throughout a work day.

Enter Create Shortcut, a free program for the Windows operating system that sits quietly in the system tray after startup. From here it monitors the connection messages, and reacts whenever it notices that a new device is connected or disconnected from the PC.

The program supports the following five device types:

• CD-Rom drive (including DVD, Blu-Ray and other optical drives)
• Removable drives (USB drives)
• Fixed drives
• Network drives
• Ram drives

As you can see from the screenshot above, you can enable the feature individually for the drive types. Once you have done that you will notice that the program places a shortcut on the desktop whenever you connect a device or insert a disc on the computer, and whenever you disconnect devices or remove discs from it again.

The only remaining options that you have are to configure the program to start with Windows, and to remember the last used desktop position for the icons.

Drive Shortcut is a lightweight software for the Windows operating system. It is compatible with all versions of Windows from Windows XP onwards.