[ACCEPTED]-Creating application shortcut in a directory-shortcut

It's not as simple as I'd have liked, but 4 there is a great class call ShellLink.cs at vbAccelerator

This code 3 uses interop, but does not rely on WSH.

Using 2 this class, the code to create the shortcut 1 is:

private static void configStep_addShortcutToStartupGroup()
{
    using (ShellLink shortcut = new ShellLink())
    {
        shortcut.Target = Application.ExecutablePath;
        shortcut.WorkingDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath);
        shortcut.Description = "My Shorcut Name Here";
        shortcut.DisplayMode = ShellLink.LinkDisplayMode.edmNormal;
        shortcut.Save(STARTUP_SHORTCUT_FILEPATH);
    }
}

Nice and clean. (.NET 4.0)

Type t = Type.GetTypeFromCLSID(new Guid("72C24DD5-D70A-438B-8A42-98424B88AFB8")); //Windows Script Host Shell Object
dynamic shell = Activator.CreateInstance(t);
try{
    var lnk = shell.CreateShortcut("sc.lnk");
    try{
        lnk.TargetPath = @"C:\something";
        lnk.IconLocation = "shell32.dll, 1";
        lnk.Save();
    }finally{
        Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(lnk);
    }
}finally{
    Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(shell);
}

That's it, no additional 4 code needed. CreateShortcut can even load shortcut from 3 file, so properties like TargetPath return existing 2 information. Shortcut object properties.

Also possible this way for 1 versions of .NET unsupporting dynamic types. (.NET 3.5)

Type t = Type.GetTypeFromCLSID(new Guid("72C24DD5-D70A-438B-8A42-98424B88AFB8")); //Windows Script Host Shell Object
object shell = Activator.CreateInstance(t);
try{
    object lnk = t.InvokeMember("CreateShortcut", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, shell, new object[]{"sc.lnk"});
    try{
        t.InvokeMember("TargetPath", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, lnk, new object[]{@"C:\whatever"});
        t.InvokeMember("IconLocation", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, lnk, new object[]{"shell32.dll, 5"});
        t.InvokeMember("Save", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, lnk, null);
    }finally{
        Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(lnk);
    }
}finally{
    Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(shell);
}

I found something like this:

private void appShortcutToDesktop(string linkName)
{
    string deskDir = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.DesktopDirectory);

    using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(deskDir + "\\" + linkName + ".url"))
    {
        string app = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;
        writer.WriteLine("[InternetShortcut]");
        writer.WriteLine("URL=file:///" + app);
        writer.WriteLine("IconIndex=0");
        string icon = app.Replace('\\', '/');
        writer.WriteLine("IconFile=" + icon);
        writer.Flush();
    }
}

Original code 1 at sorrowman's article "url-link-to-desktop"

Donwload IWshRuntimeLibrary

You also need to import of COM library IWshRuntimeLibrary. Right 3 click on your project -> add reference 2 -> COM -> IWshRuntimeLibrary -> add 1 and then use the following code snippet.

private void createShortcutOnDesktop(String executablePath)
{
    // Create a new instance of WshShellClass

    WshShell lib = new WshShellClass();
    // Create the shortcut

    IWshRuntimeLibrary.IWshShortcut MyShortcut;


    // Choose the path for the shortcut
    string deskDir = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.DesktopDirectory);
    MyShortcut = (IWshRuntimeLibrary.IWshShortcut)lib.CreateShortcut(@deskDir+"\\AZ.lnk");


    // Where the shortcut should point to

    //MyShortcut.TargetPath = Application.ExecutablePath;
    MyShortcut.TargetPath = @executablePath;


    // Description for the shortcut

    MyShortcut.Description = "Launch AZ Client";

    StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(@"D:\AZ\logo.ico");
    Properties.Resources.system.Save(writer.BaseStream);
    writer.Flush();
    writer.Close();
    // Location for the shortcut's icon           

    MyShortcut.IconLocation = @"D:\AZ\logo.ico";


    // Create the shortcut at the given path

    MyShortcut.Save();

}

After surveying all possibilities I found 15 on SO I've settled on ShellLink:

//Create new shortcut
using (var shellShortcut = new ShellShortcut(newShortcutPath)
{
     Path = path
     WorkingDirectory = workingDir,
     Arguments = args,
     IconPath = iconPath,
     IconIndex = iconIndex,
     Description = description,
})
{
    shellShortcut.Save();
}

//Read existing shortcut
using (var shellShortcut = new ShellShortcut(existingShortcut))
{
    path = shellShortcut.Path;
    args = shellShortcut.Arguments;
    workingDir = shellShortcut.WorkingDirectory;
    ...
}

Apart of being simple 14 and effective, the author (Mattias Sjögren, MS 13 MVP) is some sort of COM/PInvoke/Interop 12 guru, and perusing his code I believe it 11 is more robust than the alternatives.

It 10 should be mentioned that shortcut files 9 can also be created by several commandline 8 utilities (which in turn can be easily invoked 7 from C#/.NET). I never tried any of them, but 6 I'd start with NirCmd (NirSoft have SysInternals-like 5 quality tools).

Unfortunately NirCmd can't 4 parse shortcut files (only create them), but 3 for that purpose TZWorks lp seems capable. It can 2 even format its output as csv. lnk-parser looks good 1 too (it can output both HTML and CSV).

Similar to IllidanS4's answer, using the Windows Script Host proved the be the 7 easiest solution for me (tested on Windows 6 8 64 bit).

However, rather than importing 5 the COM type manually through code, it is 4 easier to just add the COM type library 3 as a reference. Choose References->Add Reference..., COM->Type Libraries and find and add 2 "Windows Script Host Object Model".

This imports the namespace IWshRuntimeLibrary, from which 1 you can access:

WshShell shell = new WshShell();
IWshShortcut link = (IWshShortcut)shell.CreateShortcut(LinkPathName);
link.TargetPath=TargetPathName;
link.Save();

Credit goes to Jim Hollenhorst.