Hello -
I have a folder on my desktop where I have approx 100 shortcuts to various portable installs, other locations,
etc,etc.
In Windows Explorer I put the items in details view, but I'm unable to find a details column that contains this
particular item.
Any ideas appreciated
Hi, here's a folder of shortcuts with the shortcut paths and their target paths in two columns in a spreadsheet.
Note: this will not help you sort the actual shortcuts! I don't know of a way to do that in file explorer, so this is probably just an interesting toy.
Only if you could add the target path to a field you could display in a column in file explorer would you then have a column where the target was visible in file explorer.
(The output is a CSV file which I've opened in a spreadsheet, so you can do with that what you wish).
Once you have them in that format you can search or organise as you will.
Here I've launched a Powershell script with Powershell open at the folder of interest.
That creates a CSV file on your desktop.
$SourceDir = Split-Path -Path .
$ShellThing = New-Object -ComObject 'WScript.Shell'
$AllLinks = (Get-ChildItem -Path $SourceDir -Recurse -File -Filter '*.lnk' -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue').Fullname
$Results = foreach ($Link in $AllLinks)
{
[PSCustomObject]@{
Lnk_FileName = $Link
Lnk_Target = $ShellThing.CreateShortcut($Link).TargetPath
}
}
$Results | Export-Csv -Path ~\Desktop\Output.csv -NoTypeInformation
Borrowed and very slightly adapted from here:
reddit Powershell thread
The really tricky thing is making any use of that as I've mentioned, so you can actually sort the shortcuts themselves.
I don't know of a way to use Windows search to do that, for example.
By comparison XYplorer has its own commenting system, so if the target path were copied as a comment, you would have a Comments column you could organise (and XYplorer provides scripting too FWIW).
That's intersting, wrote a response on my phone, submitted it, attempted to edit, accidentally deleted it.
Take 2
If I can sort the results in the list, that's enough. Due to some poor organization on my part
I have some shortcuts executing portable installs from locations where they really shouldn't be.
I want to move them to somewhere more appropriate leaving me free to archive the rest of the folder(s) to DVD.
Thanks for the extra info
I wondered whether a shortcut could have a comment - and it can - but its called a 'description' in vbs, so took a bit of finding. This page was the main help: Shortcut - VBScript - SS64.com
The following vb script will set the descriptions to the target path - you will have to copy the code, and paste into a file with the extension VBS (I assume vbs will run on your PC, not sure if it takes any setting up).
To set (or clear) the comments for all shortcuts in a folder, simply drag and drop the folder onto the script. I am sure it can blow up in many ways I have not yet tested! hth, MartinCode:'18/12/23 MNG try to set description/comment on shortcut 'Drag folder and drop on script to pass folder name wscript.echo "args(0):" & wscript.arguments(0) Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(wscript.arguments(0)) set objFiles = objFolder.files for each filnam in objFiles if filnam.type = "Shortcut" then wscript.echo filnam Set lnk = WshShell.CreateShortcut(filnam) lnk.description = lnk.targetpath 'lnk.description = "cleared" lnk.save() end if next
Interesting outside the box thinking - here's an example of the result to show how that appears:
- the exception is the URL shortcuts.
Last edited by dalchina; 18 Dec 2023 at 08:01.
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