c#, How to solve the *.lnk file title?

Question

I want to get title of shortcut, not file name, not description, but title. how to get it?

I have learn to resolve its target path from here, How to resolve a .lnk in c#

but i don't find any method to get its title.

_{(source: ggpht.com)}

_{(source: ggpht.com)}

Answer 1

It sounds like you might be trying to get the title of the file the link points to, as JRL suggests.

If you're not trying to do that, I'd recommend opening up one of these .lnk files in a hex editor like XVI32. You can probably tell from there whether the Chinese name displayed is embedded in the .lnk file or is somewhere else.

If it's somewhere else, it may be an Extended File Property. There's some source code that may help with retrieving that info: Extended File Properties

If by some chance it is inside the .lnk file, I recommend looking at the Windows Shortcut Specification to get offset information and such on the location of that data.

Answer 2

You can use the property system APIs in latest relase of Code pack:

(all the 670+ properties in the system are accesible using simple property accessors)

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack

I know your current need is only limited title of lnk files. Using the above library, the sample code might look like:

ShellLink myLink = ShellObject.FromParsingName("c:\somepath\myLink.lnk");

string title = myLink.Properties.System.Title.Value;

// This is what its pointing to... string target = myLink.Properties.System.TargetParsingPath.Value;

Answer 3

There is a Desktop.ini hidden file in shortcuts directory, the Desktop.ini file records display strings info of shortcuts.

Desktop.ini file sample:

 [LocalizedFileNames]
Windows Update.lnk=@%SystemRoot%\system32\wucltux.dll,-1
Default Programs.lnk=@%SystemRoot%\system32\sud.dll,-1

Answer 4

Please define "title". The only attributes that sound relevent are the shortcut's file name, the target's file name, and the .lnk file's description data.

Answer 5

Assuming you mean the title of the file the link points to, not the link itself, and that you are talking about Windows, then it's done via a feature in NTFS, alternative streams. You can access those streams using code in this article.

Answer 6

Looking around on creating shortcuts, looks like there's a lot of jumping through hoops with scripting objects. But am I missing something? If you have a path to the shortcut, the name should be exactly what you find in the path, not some attribute you have to look up.

    Dim f As FileInfo = New FileInfo("C:\Name of shortcut.lnk")
    Dim title As String = f.Name.Replace(".lnk", String.Empty)