Get lnk shortcut target from public (all users) folder without elevating admin privileges

Asked Apr 21 '14 at 10:45

Active Apr 21 '14 at 10:45

Viewed 368 times

I am looking for a way to read lnk shortcut target, when this one locates in public folder such as:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

I tried to use following:

Interop.Shell32.FolderItem.GetLink - it throws an exception ( Why do i get E_ACCESSDENIED when reading public shortcuts through Shell32? )
IWshShortcut https://stackoverflow.com/a/13079688/1722921 - it throws an exception too (from HRESULT: 0x80020009 (DISP_E_EXCEPTION))

And I didn't find others ways to do this. I know that I can fix it with elevating admin rights for my program, but I don't want to do it, since I can easily read the values through the Windows UI without getting an elevation prompt. So I am looking for a way programmatically read shortcut target without admin privileges.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:49

Community

asked Apr 21 '14 at 10:45

Anatolii Humennyi

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Have you tried to copy the shortcut to temporary folder and read it from here? – MC ND Apr 21 '14 at 11:22
@MCND Of course such circumvention works. But I am looking for more reasonable way :) I read many shortcuts (not one) so it will be much longer time, if I will copy each shortcut, that for my task is not quite acceptable. – Anatolii Humennyi Apr 21 '14 at 11:36
No need to copy all links. Handle the exception and do it only for the "problematic" links. – MC ND Apr 21 '14 at 11:59
@MCND There are many such "problematic" links... – Anatolii Humennyi Apr 21 '14 at 14:25

Get lnk shortcut target from public (all users) folder without elevating admin privileges

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