How to create a shortcut using PowerShell

Question

I want to create a shortcut with PowerShell for this executable:

C:\Program Files (x86)\ColorPix\ColorPix.exe

How can this be done?

Answer 1

I don't know any native cmdlet in powershell but you can use com object instead:

$WshShell = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut = $WshShell.CreateShortcut("$Home\Desktop\ColorPix.lnk")
$Shortcut.TargetPath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\ColorPix\ColorPix.exe"
$Shortcut.Save()

you can create a powershell script save as set-shortcut.ps1 in your $pwd

param ( [string]$SourceExe, [string]$DestinationPath )

$WshShell = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut = $WshShell.CreateShortcut($DestinationPath)
$Shortcut.TargetPath = $SourceExe
$Shortcut.Save()

and call it like this

Set-ShortCut "C:\Program Files (x86)\ColorPix\ColorPix.exe" "$Home\Desktop\ColorPix.lnk"

If you want to pass arguments to the target exe, it can be done by:

#Set the additional parameters for the shortcut  
$Shortcut.Arguments = "/argument=value"  

before $Shortcut.Save().

For convenience, here is a modified version of set-shortcut.ps1. It accepts arguments as its second parameter.

param ( [string]$SourceExe, [string]$ArgumentsToSourceExe, [string]$DestinationPath )
$WshShell = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut = $WshShell.CreateShortcut($DestinationPath)
$Shortcut.TargetPath = $SourceExe
$Shortcut.Arguments = $ArgumentsToSourceExe
$Shortcut.Save()

Answer 2

Beginning PowerShell 5.0 New-Item, Remove-Item, and Get-ChildItem have been enhanced to support creating and managing symbolic links. The ItemType parameter for New-Item accepts a new value, SymbolicLink. Now you can create symbolic links in a single line by running the New-Item cmdlet.

New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path "C:\temp" -Name "calc.lnk" -Value "c:\windows\system32\calc.exe"

Be Carefull a SymbolicLink is different from a Shortcut, shortcuts are just a file. They have a size (A small one, that just references where they point) and they require an application to support that filetype in order to be used. A symbolic link is filesystem level, and everything sees it as the original file. An application needs no special support to use a symbolic link.

Anyway if you want to create a Run As Administrator shortcut using Powershell you can use

$file="c:\temp\calc.lnk"
$bytes = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes($file)
$bytes[0x15] = $bytes[0x15] -bor 0x20 #set byte 21 (0x15) bit 6 (0x20) ON (Use –bor to set RunAsAdministrator option and –bxor to unset)
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($file, $bytes)

If anybody want to change something else in a .LNK file you can refer to official Microsoft documentation.