{"id":1249,"date":"2017-12-04T05:51:41","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T05:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scmgalaxy.com\/tutorials\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2020-01-09T09:35:50","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T09:35:50","slug":"quick-launch-shortcut-in-vista-and-windows-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/quick-launch-shortcut-in-vista-and-windows-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Launch shortcut in Vista and Windows 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

InstallerGeek created the topic: Quick Launch shortcut in Vista and Windows 7<\/strong>
\nThe right substitute for Vista\/XP like Quick Launch shortcut is to make the link pinned to the taskbar (IMO).
\n>
\n> It appears as simple as putting the shortcut in User Pinned\\TaskBar subfolder of Quick Launch folder in Windows 7.
\n>
\n>
\n>
\n>
\n>
\n>
\n>
\n>
\n> <\/Directory>
\n> <\/Directory>
\n> <\/Directory>
\n> <\/Directory>
\n>
\n> Now, I can condition the installation of the component containing the Shortcut element.
\n> When OS is Windows 7 shortcut gets created in QL6 directory, otherwise in QL4.
\n>
\n> Since this would unnecessarily create User Pinned\\TaskBar folders on Vista and XP, does anybody know if there is a more elegant way to accomplish the same goal?<\/p>\n

applicationPackaging replied the topic: Re: Quick Launch shortcut in Vista and Windows 7<\/strong>
\nTony, how do you catch the case, that your user only can install applications elevated as administrator (don’t assume everybody is admin on his\/her machine)? Wouldn’t the quick launch shortcut then only appear on the administrator’s quick launch bar and hence is invisible for the normal user(s)?<\/p>\n

Tom<\/p>\n

applicationPackaging replied the topic: Re: Quick Launch shortcut in Vista and Windows 7<\/strong>
\nBecause of various other factors, I require from users to have admin rights when installing and running the app. So this is not a problem for me (at least not for now).<\/p>\n

But you don’t have to be admin to install the application. Administrator can approve of certain MSI to be installed by non-elevated users on his network and MSI takes care of elevating the rights so that, for example, folders and files can be created in Program Files.<\/p>\n

I tested this scenario once: I allowed all users on my machine to run MSI and as non-elevated user I had no problem installing the app. I had problems running it because some of installed apps write to Program Files subfolders, but that’s another issue.<\/p>\n

applicationPackaging replied the topic: Re: Quick Launch shortcut in Vista and Windows 7<\/strong>
\nI am not sure if I understood the question well and if my previous response makes sense. But this is how would I try doing it if I had to do it and if WiX didn’t let me do declaratively:<\/p>\n

Even if MSI (or more correctly parts of install) run with elevated privileges, I think that immediate custom action runs non-elevated and I can find current user’s ApplicationData folder via Shell API call GetSpecialFolder. I can then create shortcut links programmatically in custom action code as seen below (I don’t know where I got it from, probably some MSDN article).<\/p>\n

\/\/
\n\/\/
\n\/\/ CreateLink – uses the Shell’s IShellLink and IPersistFile interfaces
\n\/\/ to create and store a shortcut to the specified object.
\n\/\/
\n\/\/ Returns the result of calling the member functions of the interfaces.
\n\/\/
\n\/\/ Parameters:
\n\/\/ lpszPathObj – address of a buffer containing the path of the object.
\n\/\/ lpszPathLink – address of a buffer containing the path where the
\n\/\/ Shell link is to be stored.
\n\/\/ lpszDesc – address of a buffer containing the description of the
\n\/\/ Shell link.
\n\/\/ lpszIconLink – address of a buffer containing the path where the
\n\/\/ Shell link icon can be found.
\n\/\/ index – index of the icon
\n\/\/<\/p>\n

HRESULT CreateLink(LPCTSTR lpszPathObj, LPCTSTR lpszPathLink, LPCTSTR lpszDesc, LPCTSTR lpszIconLink, int index) {
\n HRESULT hres;
\n IShellLink* psl;<\/p>\n

\/\/ Get a pointer to the IShellLink interface.
\n hres=::CoCreateInstance(CLSID_ShellLink, NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER,
\n IID_IShellLink, (LPVOID*)&psl);
\n if(SUCCEEDED(hres))
\n {
\n IPersistFile* ppf;<\/p>\n

\/\/ Set the path to the shortcut target and add the description.
\n psl->SetPath(lpszPathObj);
\n psl->SetDescription(lpszDesc);
\n if(lpszIconLink!=0)
\n psl->SetIconLocation(lpszIconLink, index);<\/p>\n

\/\/ Query IShellLink for the IPersistFile interface for saving the
\n \/\/ shortcut in persistent storage.
\n hres=psl->QueryInterface(IID_IPersistFile, (LPVOID*)&ppf);<\/p>\n

if(SUCCEEDED(hres))
\n {
\n USES_CONVERSION;<\/p>\n

\/\/ Ensure that the string is Unicode.
\n LPWSTR wsz=CT2W(lpszPathLink);<\/p>\n

\/\/ Add code here to check return value from MultiByteWideChar
\n \/\/ for success.<\/p>\n

\/\/ Save the link by calling IPersistFile::Save.
\n hres = ppf->Save(wsz, TRUE);
\n ppf->Release();
\n }
\n psl->Release();
\n }
\n return hres;
\n}
\nInstallerGeek replied the topic: Re: Quick Launch shortcut in Vista and Windows 7<\/strong>
\nThere’s no need to do that: The Shortcut table can be used to create shortcuts in any directory. And it takes care of uninstall and rollback, which your code does not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

InstallerGeek created the topic: Quick Launch shortcut in Vista and Windows 7 The right substitute for Vista\/XP like Quick Launch shortcut is to make the link pinned to the taskbar… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_joinchat":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[303,304],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-vista","tag-windows-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1250,"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions\/1250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devopsschool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}