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()