Create a shortcut from PowerShell

To create a shortcut in PowerShell, the WScript.Shell COM object has a simple method (with additional properties not shown), which makes creating shortcuts programmatically simple. Below are a couple of examples, New-FavoriteShortcut will create a shortcut on the left pane of the File Explorer, for quick access to folders, applications and documents.

function New-Shortcut($TargetPath, $ShortcutPath) {
    $WshShell = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
    $Shortcut = $WshShell.CreateShortcut($ShortcutPath)
    $Shortcut.TargetPath = $TargetPath
    $Shortcut.Save()
}
 
function New-FavoriteShortcut($TargetPath, $DisplayName) {
    $WshShell = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
    $Shortcut = $WshShell.CreateShortcut("$env:USERPROFILE\Links\$DisplayName.lnk")
    $Shortcut.TargetPath = $TargetPath
    $Shortcut.Save()
}

August 17, 2013