Windows – Create a Windows shortcut through a batch file (.bat)

batch-filescriptingwindows

Is it possible to create a shortcut from a .exe using batch scripting?

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Using batch alone? Probably not, unless you're just copying a shortcut from the Start Menu to somewhere else. We had this issue when building/refining our latest deployment process and certain groups wanted shortcuts to everything on their desktop.

The Windows NT Resource Kit has a utility named shortcut.exe that could do this. I have never tested it on XP/2003/2008.

If you can get away with VBS, this would work:

Set oWS = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sLinkFile = "C:\MyShortcut.LNK"
Set oLink = oWS.CreateShortcut(sLinkFile)

oLink.TargetPath = "C:\Program Files\MyApp\MyProgram.EXE"
' optional shortcut properties
' oLink.Arguments = ""
' oLink.Description = "MyProgram"
' oLink.HotKey = "ALT+CTRL+F"
' oLink.IconLocation = "C:\Program Files\MyApp\MyProgram.EXE, 2"
' oLink.WindowStyle = "1"
' oLink.WorkingDirectory = "C:\Program Files\MyApp"
oLink.Save

Source

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Windows – How to find what process is holding a file open in Windows

I've had success with Sysinternals Process Explorer. With this, you can search to find what process(es) have a file open, and you can use it to close the handle(s) if you want. Of course, it is safer to close the whole process. Exercise caution and judgement.

To find a specific file, use the menu option Find->Find Handle or DLL... Type in part of the path to the file. The list of processes will appear below.

If you prefer command line, Sysinternals suite includes command line tool Handle, that lists open handles.

Examples

c:\Program Files\SysinternalsSuite>handle.exe |findstr /i "e:\" (finds all files opened from drive e:\"
c:\Program Files\SysinternalsSuite>handle.exe |findstr /i "file-or-path-in-question"

Batch file link with parameters

That depends on what kind of data is in the parameters being passed. If it is simple text data, less than 256 characters, you can do so on the command line. Longer parameters may require using an environmental variable. Or worse, text files.

[FirstLevel.script]

SetWindowsEnvironment("CMDLongParm", $ResultString1);
SysCall("f:\batch\sub.cmd \"$ResultString2\"");

[sub.cmd]

@echo off
DoEmail %1 %CMDLongParm% >> Email.Log

Just some pseudo-code examples to show how it is done.

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Windows – How to find what process is holding a file open in Windows

Batch file link with parameters

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