Making shortcuts - windows explorer

Post by **Phineus** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 9:53 am

Does anybody know how to make a shortcut from the command line in winXP?

Woody · Post by **Woody** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 10:58 am

I am getting close to finding a solution.

From this page

An A-Z Index of the Windows NT/XP command line

http://www.ss64.com/nt/

I have found a shortcut command and how to use it

http://www.ss64.com/nt/shortcut.html

But apperentlly you have to have some kind of "Server Resource Kit" and I have not figured out where you get that for free yet.

Woody · Post by **Woody** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:19 am

Ok I found the problem, microsoft in their inifinite wisdom only included shorctut.exe on the OS up to win95. Found that out from this page

Missing DOS Commands
http://www.ericphelps.com/batch/basics/

They included a link to where you can download it fromMS
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Prod...Tools/ApplicationTools/envars.exe

Or a freeware shortcut.exe replacement can be found here

http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBM/tip6000/rh6035.htm

Post by **Phineus** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 3:21 pm

Okay Woody, I think you're going to like this one.

Back in the old days, I used to use a dos based <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=fu_rd19i.zip">ramdisk</a>. It was simple and easy to use and you could initiate it from autoexec.bat. Windows used to have ramdisk.sys but it topped out at 32 megs, so a better one was in order. Enter winXP and it would no longer work, not least reason of which was that autoexec.bat doesn't get run anymore. Of course, you can still get a ms ramdisk but it still has the same limitations it's always had. Then I found one by <a href="http://www.arsoft-online.de/">AR soft</a> and it worked for a while but for some reason I don't recall it wasn't up to snuff. Then I found one by <a href="http://users.compaqnet.be/cn181612/RAMDisk/RAMDisk.htm">Q-soft</a> which is the one I'm currently using. Only thing is, when I was using the dos based ramdisk, I could add commands to make temp directories and set paths within the autoexec.bat file. Now, however, while q-soft works fine, for the most part, I lose the ability to do the automatic grunt work. Here's where it gets fun. I make a batch file. I could call it anything, including autoexec.bat, lol, but since it's main duty is to prep the ramdisk, I just call it ramdisk.bat. Then, in the registry, I add a key to trigger the batch file on start up.

Code: Select all

 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"RamDisk"="C:\\ramdisk.bat"

Voila, instant autoexec.bat all over again. MS can try to make it harder, but they can't stop us. Anyway, I make a temp directory for the browser temp files, set a couple paths, and that's pretty much it. Until lately.

Each day, I download a couple files routinely. They get saved deep in the directory structure on an out-of-the-way partition. About ten clicks. So, I went looking for the command line code to make a shortcut. I came across the site you first linked to, but couldn't find a shortcut.exe and since that site emphasizes nt, or seemed to, I left it alone. I, at about the same time as you, also found (via a google search on "shortcut.exe") the <a href="http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBM/tip6000/rh6035.htm">jsiinc.com</a> site you found (most of those other links, including the ms ones, are either dead or don't apply to xp). So, no problem. It took me a few minutes to get the parameters right, but it works fine.

Code: Select all

 Shortcut /F:B:\Shortcut.LNK  /A:C /T:C:\path\to\target\directory\

Note. You have to include the .LNK extension or it won't work.

I dropped that into my ramdisk.bat file and now I have a shortcut to the deep path on startup. And the best part is my routine save takes only two clicks.

Worth it? We have computers, might as well make them work for us. It's noteworthy, though, that this is three times the work that it would be on a unix based system for the same task.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Thanks ;-)

Woody · Post by **Woody** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 4:17 pm

I dont think I have used a Ram disk since I moved to the darkside and switched to windows. The good ol Amiga that I used to use had a dynamic ram disk as part of the OS, it would resize itself automaticly depending on how much data it had in it. It was great for safely installing new programs and storing temporary files. I even remember using it for a game back then, Civ II liked to hit the hard drive almost all the time so I got to where I setup a batch file to copy the whole game to the ram disk and run it from there. It was much faster that way and saved wear and tear on the hard drive( I think it was a massive 270 megs). The Amiga also had a second type of ram drive, it was static in size but the neat feature is that it would survive a reboot, you could load your OS into it and have nearly instant reboots.

I have read about having a ram disk on a windows machine but I have not had any use for one so havent explored the option. Looks like you found a use for it.

Post by **Phineus** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 2:29 am

Oh, I don't think I was so much advocating a ramdisk as I was emphasizing the workarounds to windows' tyranny over our computers. You know, they won't execute autoexec.bat but we can implement our own, they won't go over 32 megs for the ram disk, so somebody makes one better than theirs, they want to charge for shortcut.exe so somebody just makes one, they want to increase the carpel/rsi strain but we don't need to fall for it. A bunch of little things, sure, but they add up. And finding these answers makes for a better experience.

Now what would be really nice would be to find solutions for windows memory management, which is just horrendous. One day, maybe...

Post by **Phineus** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 7:31 pm

There's been an update.
<ul><li><a href="http://mtm2.com/~mtmg/downloads/windows ... cut.zip</a> (v1.11)</li></ul>
http://www.optimumx.com/download/#Shortcut

ch_2005 · Post by **ch_2005** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 7:52 pm

creating a shortcut from the command line doesnt seem to be your final objective. What are you doing that requires it? Maybe theres something we can help you with that's higher up. Why make these links from the command line?

Post by **Phineus** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 8:08 pm

I regularly download files to obscure directories deep in the tree. It's the difference between keeping what I download or just examining it. Browsing to them is a chore, so I put the short cut in a temp directory on the ramdisk. Two clicks and I'm there. And since I already run a batch file on start up, adding the shortcut at the same time is no trouble at all. And placing a permanent cut on C:\ adds to the total clickage, so I avoid it if I can.