Creating desktop shortcuts from the command line?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Peter A. Berger Jr. wrote:
> Does anyone know how to create a desktop shortcut to an executable using the
> command line/batch file?
>
> I've tried: copy c:\application.exe c:\documents and
> settings\%username%\desktop\shortcut to application.lnk
>
> and it doesn't seem to work. It creats an icon on the desktop, but clicking
> it does nothing. I've tried copy and xcopy and all the switches, but none
> seem to create shortcuts. I've looked at other shorcuts (automatically
> created) and they all seem to be in the form of: shortcut.lnk
>
> I am stumped. Any 411 would be great. Thanks...

No way to do it using standard batch commands that I know of. You can do
this using windows script, either vbscript or javascript. For examples see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ [...] rtcut.asp.
--
Tom Porterfield
MS-MVP Windows
http://support.telop.org

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup only.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Peter A. Berger Jr. wrote:

> Does anyone know how to create a desktop shortcut to an executable
> using the command line/batch file?
>
> I've tried: copy c:\application.exe c:\documents and
> settings\%username%\desktop\shortcut to application.lnk
>
Hi,

For starters, never use %username% to get a user's profile path.

You should use the environment variable USERPROFILE instead of the
username, because sometimes the user profile path contains more than
just the username (e.g. <username>.<domain>, <username>.000,
<username>.windows)

Back to your issue:

You cannot create a shortcut by just copy the exe file.

You can use a VBScript to create the shortcut:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/m [...] urce&hl=en

Alternatively:

Some free command line tools for shortcut creation:

Marty List's shortcut.exe
http://optimumx.com/download/#Shortcut

MakeScut
http://www.scriptlogic.com/product [...] efault.asp


--
torgeir, Microsoft MVP Scripting and WMI, Porsgrunn Norway
Administration scripting examples and an ONLINE version of
the 1328 page Scripting Guide:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/s [...] fault.mspx

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

The solution I ended up using was Wscript to make a .vbs file. Using the:

set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell" )
strDesktop = WshShell.SpecialFolders("AllUsersDesktop" )
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strDesktop & "\shortcut name.lnk" )
oShellLink.TargetPath = "c:\application folder\application.exe"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.IconLocation = "c:\application folder\application.ico"
oShellLink.Description = "Shortcut Script"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = "c:\application folder"
oShellLink.Save


did the trick.
THANKS ALL!

"Torgeir Bakken (MVP)" wrote:

> Peter A. Berger Jr. wrote:
>
> > Does anyone know how to create a desktop shortcut to an executable
> > using the command line/batch file?
> >
> > I've tried: copy c:\application.exe c:\documents and
> > settings\%username%\desktop\shortcut to application.lnk
> >
> Hi,
>
> For starters, never use %username% to get a user's profile path.
>
> You should use the environment variable USERPROFILE instead of the
> username, because sometimes the user profile path contains more than
> just the username (e.g. <username>.<domain>, <username>.000,
> <username>.windows)
>
> Back to your issue:
>
> You cannot create a shortcut by just copy the exe file.
>
> You can use a VBScript to create the shortcut:
> http://groups.google.co.uk/group/m [...] urce&hl=en
>
> Alternatively:
>
> Some free command line tools for shortcut creation:
>
> Marty List's shortcut.exe
> http://optimumx.com/download/#Shortcut
>
> MakeScut
> http://www.scriptlogic.com/product [...] efault.asp
>
>
> --
> torgeir, Microsoft MVP Scripting and WMI, Porsgrunn Norway
> Administration scripting examples and an ONLINE version of
> the 1328 page Scripting Guide:
> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/s [...] fault.mspx
>