Computer shortcut
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Computer shortcuts are small files containing only the location of another file.
Microsoft Windows adds .lnk as the extension, and displays them with a curled arrow by default. This extension remains hidden in Windows Explorer even when Hide extensions for known file types is unchecked. .lnk files are commonly referred to as "shortcuts" or "link files" or "LNK files".
Macintosh System 7 through Mac OS 8.1, shortcuts distinguish themselves visually to the user by the fact that their file names were in italics. In Mac OS 8.5, another distinguishing mark was added, badging with an "alias arrow" - a black arrow on a small white square - similar to that used for shortcuts in Microsoft Windows.
In Mac OS X, the filenames of aliases are not italicized, but the arrow badge remains.
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[edit] Windows shortcuts
To create a shortcut for a program in Windows, you can right click on the file and go to Create Shortcut. After creating the shortcut, there are ways to modify how the program will run. Right click the shortcut you just created and go to Properties. In the Target Field, you can add command line switches to the end to modify how the program will run. Suppose you are playing a game, it might be possible to make the game run in a windowed mode if it runs in fullscreen by adding '-window' to the end of the target field, if the programmers of the game included this. Shortcuts contain the following attributes: arguments (parameters), a description (comment), hotkey combination, icon path and index, the destination of the shortcut, the directory to launch the destination from, and a hint as to how to display the destination when executing. In addition, shortcuts contain information to assist Windows locate the target of the shortcut if the target is moved. Developers can manipulate shortcuts using the IShellLink API.
It is also important to remember that if a shortcut is added to a removable device that the drive letter may change when the device is plugged into a different computer. This would result in a break in the shortcut, and it would not operate properly even though the file that it links to still exists.
[edit] Critical vulnerability with Windows shortcuts
Beginning from Windows 95, this system has big critical vulnerability, causing explorer.exe crash.
1. Create a shortcut on your desktop.
2. Create second shortcut on your desktop.
3. Link 1st shortcut to the second one. To do this just edit chortcut file, using any file HEX editor.
4. Then link 2nd shortcut to the 1st one.
For example: you have 1.lnk linked to 2.lnk, and 2.lnk linked to 1.lnk.
In a moment explorer.exe will cause fault and will be closed. If you restart the computer, it will not help you. To fix the problem you will need to delete these 2 files.
This vulnerability is already fixed in Windows Vista.
[edit] Removing the white arrows from Windows shortcuts
To remove the small white arrows from the bottom-left of all shortcut icons you can do the following:
Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe
Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Shell Icons
Backup the key by exporting it to a file In the right-pane, create a new String value named 29 Double-click 29 and set its Value data as:
C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll,50
(shell32.dll,50 is a empty icon)
Close Registry Editor.
To apply the changes instantly, follow this
Right-click Desktop, choose Properties Click the Appearance Tab. Click Advanced button Choose Icon from the drop-down list Set it's size to 31 and press OK, OK.
The changes will be applied now. Repeat the above steps and then set the Icon size back to 32 (defaults). The above steps are required to force Windows to redraw the icons.
[edit] See also
- Alias (Mac OS)
- Symbolic link (Unix)
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