Re: 21.x feature request: windows shortcut support

[Raymond Zeitler]

"Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:

> From: "Stefan Monnier" <monnier+gnu.emacs.bug/news/@RUM.cs.yale.edu>
> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.bug
> Date: 11 Oct 2001 16:05:16 -0400
> 
> > I don't understand this thread and I think the reason is to be found
> > in the quoted text above.  So here's my question: since application
> > need to support shortcuts specially, what is the "hard coded" semantics
> > of shortcuts (i.e. how do the runtime libraries treat them) and what
> > is the usual semantics normally provided by application ?
> 
> I'm not 100% sure about the details of this, so people who know
> Windows better please correct me where I'm wrong.
> 
> AFAIK, Windows applications do not support shortcuts at all.  The
> shortcut support in Windows is implemented on the shell level.  That's
> not the shell as in Bash or COMAMND.COM, that's the Windows shell: a
> program which is responsible for launching other programs and
> generally managing those programs.  The default Windows shell is the
> Explorer.
> 
> Since running a program from another program requires to call a
> special function provided by the Windows shell (i.e. Explorer), every
> program which runs other programs ``inherits'' this shortcut support.
> But that support is therefore limited to launching programs only.

As a user, I find it hard to accept that .lnk behavior is described in
Explorer for three reasons:

1.  If you open a command prompt and enter START foo.lnk, the
    appropriate application for opening the shortcut's target is
    invoked.  It's true that Explorer is running if only to allow
    browsing of the desktop, but I don't think CMD.EXE & START depend
    on Explorer in any way.

2.  If you edit the File Type of the Shortcut, you will not find any
    default Actions.  This is in opposition to how a .PDF document is
    associated with Adobe Acrobat Reader.

3.  If you're foolhardy enough to muck about with RegEdit, you'll find
    that new Shortcuts are created with this command:
        RunDLL32 AppWiz.Cpl,NewLinkHere %1
    Note that %1 (presumably) refers to the filename of the target.

So the behavior is defined in the registry.  Explorer is merely one of
the GUI to the registry.

It's possible that my disagreement is based on my misconception of the
definition of "Shell", and if that's the case, I apologize.