Create shortcut in windows programmatically

Question

Is there a way to create link in windows?
I found samples that use VBScript or one has to do download Shortcut.exe.
I need a simple solution. Is that possible?

see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/606820/is-there-a-java-library-to-access-the-native-windows-api and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2389156/calling-win32-api-method-from-java — siledh, Oct 28 '13 at 07:21
If the app. has a GUI, the best option is usually to install it using [Java Web Start](http://stackoverflow.com/tags/java-web-start/info). JWS works on Windows, OS X & *nix, and provides support for desktop shortcuts, start menu items and file associations. — Andrew Thompson, Oct 28 '13 at 08:05

BlackOverlord · Answer 1 · 2016-03-14T17:42:28.270

17

I had the same problem, so i wrote library for parsing and creating .lnk files. It does not use VBScripts or JNI, java code only. See my Github.

Creating shortcuts: ShellLink.createLink("targetfile", "linkfile.lnk"). You can also set up most parameters of the link. See details and examples in repo.

Probably this question is not actual already, but i hope it will be helpfull for people who will find this topic in Google.

edited Mar 14 '16 at 17:42

answered Feb 10 '14 at 07:54

BlackOverlord

388
4
14

This `mslinks` library works well. Only potential downside to users is compiling it by hand (To the author of the library, I do recommend offering a jar download via `mslinks/releases`). Works very well for simply linking a `.exe` to a target location. As illustrated in the comment above, the code is a one-liner after the library/api has been imported. – tresf Apr 12 '16 at 03:32
@BlackOverlord this is great! Do you know of a way to set the shortcut to "Run as administrator" by default as well? – TragedyStruck Jan 04 '18 at 21:16

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

0

Well, I had to use Shortcut.exe to create shortcut but actually what I needed was a HardLink to a folder but Shortcut.exe would create a SoftLink.
Eventually I used junction.exe to create the HardLink.
Check this post for more information https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46885/how-to-create-symbolic-links-in-windows

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

1
1

answered Oct 30 '13 at 14:21

Mady

5,016
7
35
46

score -4 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 29 '16 at 13:02

-4

I suggest you to create a shortcut manually and then copy it programatically into the desktop folder. c:\users\desktop

edited Jul 29 '16 at 13:02

Seth

1,545
1
16
30

answered Oct 28 '13 at 07:21

Lavneet

516
5
19

Create shortcut in windows programmatically

3 Answers3

Linked