Create Desktop Shortcuts &
Refresh the Desktop

This sample shows how to create Desktop Shortcuts or Shell Links from Visual Basic using only standard API functions. It does not rely on any typelib files, external .DLL's or .OCX's. Although this program only creates Desktop shortcuts, with a minor code change you can create the shortcut in any folder.

Also shown is how to determine the location Special Folders such as the Desktop and Recent Files folder and perform file operations using the SHFileOperation API. The Designed for Windows XP Application Specification says that you should get the path to Special Folders using the SHGetFolderPath API. To learn about this API, see my Special Folders sample.

Another very valuable technique illustrated is how to refresh the Desktop which is especially useful if you are running an Active Desktop.

The downside to this sample is that it is somewhat limited since it does not let you set shortcut properties like the Start In folder, Run Mode or Target String arguments. For full control over these properties, see one of my other Shell Link examples.

Download Source Code

The basic approach used is to create a Link (.Lnk) file in the Recent Files folder, move the file to the Desktop folder, then tell Windows to refresh the Desktop so the shortcut appears.

The first step is determining the locations of the Desktop and Recent Files folders. In Windows speak, such folders are file system objects called Special Folders and are referenced by Item Identifiers. To find their locations the SHGetSpecialFolderLocation API is provided. This function takes 3 parameters. The first is the handle to the calling window. The next is a flag specifying the folder to locate. CSIDL_DESKTOPDIRECTORY and CSIDL_RECENT are used to locate the Desktop and Recent Files folders, respectively. The last value is an ITEMIDLIST structure which gets populated with a list of item identifiers. Once the item identifier is obtained for the desired folder it must be converted to a path. A call to SHGetPathFromIDList does this.

The path of the application that we are creating a shortcut for is passed to the SHAddToRecentDocs API to add it to the Recent Files folder. Once there, a ".Lnk" is appended to its name and it is copied to the Desktop with SHFileOperation (for details on this function see my file operations page). Now the .Lnk file is renamed to the name specified by the user. Again, SHFileOperation is used.

All that remains is to refresh the desktop to insure the shortcut appears. SHGetSpecialFolderLocation is called one more time to get the location of the Desktop. This differs from the desktop folder used earlier. In this case the CSIDL_DESKTOP flag is passed. Armed with the desktop's location a notification message is sent to Windows via SHChangeNotify along with the item identifier of the desktop. Upon receipt of this notification Windows refreshes the desktop and our short cut shows up.

Download the project and press F5 to run the program. Enter the full path of the application to create a shortcut for and a name for the shortcut then click the Create button.