Understanding Windows Mobile Shortcuts

Shortcuts provides users an easier way to launch applications. On a WM device, a user can tap on a shortcut and the associated application will be launched automatically. Shortcuts can contain target application path along with any neccessary parameter information.

Users can create their own shortcuts by:

1. Establishing ActiveSync connection between the device and the desktop computer.
2. Explore the Mobile Device folder and browse to the folder which contains the target file/folder.
3. Right-click on the target and select Create Shortcut menu item. This will generate a shortcut (.lnk) file in the same folder.
4. Move or copy the shortcut if you want it anywhere else on the device.

Format of Windows Mobile Shortcut (.lnk) files

To know the format of a shortcut, copy the shortcut or .lnk file to the desktop and open it in a text editor such as Notepad. A typical shortcut on a Windows Mobile device will have the following format

xx#"\{PATH}\{APPLICATION_NAME}"

where xx is number of characters in the above text excluding xx#.

For e.g.

23#"\Windows\iexplore.exe" is content of a shortcut to Pocket Internet Explorer

where 23 is the count of characters after #.
and \Windows\iexplore.exe is the target path