Vista - Changing target path of windows shortcuts

I have a user who created a lot of windows shortcuts and now the
target path has changed so we need to modify these with a script. And
its not as simple as replacing one server name with another. In fact,
all the shortcuts in question point to files on the user's C: drive.
Because of a change in an application, those files now have to be
stored in a different directory on the C: drive.

If it matters, old path is "c:\documents and settings\localservice
\application data". New path is "c:\documents and settings\username
\local settings\application data\."

Is there an easy way to do a recursive search for shortcut files and
modify the target path for each one if it has a specific string in
it?

Thanks,

Tim

There is no specific command for it. You'll have to use wscript.shell com
object.
You can't *get* the lnk file target path, the trick is to *create* it again:

1. Create new shortcut for each shortcut you find
2. Get its targetpath for comparison
4. If your criteria matches, set the new target path
5. Save the lnk file.

$shell = new-object -com wscript.shell

get-childitem -filter *.lnk -recurse | foreach {
$lnk = $shell.CreateShortcut($_.fullname)
$oldpath= $lnk.TargetPath
if($oldpath -eq $yourCriteria"){
$lnk.TargetPath = "new_path"
$lnk.Save()
}
}



-----
Shay Levi
$cript Fanatic
http://scriptolog.blogspot.com

I missed the get-childitem's -path parameter
it should be:

get-childitem <path> -filter *.lnk -recurse ...


-----
Shay Levi
$cript Fanatic
http://scriptolog.blogspot.com

On Oct 31, 9:34 am, Shay Levi <n...@xxxxxx> wrote:Thanks Shay for the quick response!

You have me on the right path. I made a couple of changes to your
script and have listed it below. I don't want to change the entire
target path of the shortcut so I need to be able to replace a block of
text with another. Here is what I'm trying:

$psshell = new-object -com wscript.shell
$oldtarget = "C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application Data
\ColligoOfflineClient\Storage3\Files\Sites"
$newtarget = "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings
\Application Data\ColligoOfflineClient\storage5\Files\Sites"

get-childitem c:\testshortcut -filter *.lnk -recurse | foreach {
$lnk = $psshell.CreateShortcut($_.fullname)
$oldpath = $lnk.TargetPath
if($oldpath -match "ColligoOfflineClient"){
$newpath = $oldpath -replace($oldtarget,$newtarget)
$lnk.TargetPath = $newpath
$lnk.Save()
}
}

When I run this, I'm getting this error:

Invalid regular expression pattern: C:\Documents and Settings
\LocalService\Application Data\ColligoOfflineClient\Storage3\Files
\Sites.
At H:\scripts\shortcut.ps1:10 char:47
+ $newpath = $oldpath -replace($oldtarget, <<<< $newtarget)

I'm sure this is something simple? What am I missing?

This is because the backslash ("\") char is a regular expression meta character.
To avoid such issues you can use the [regex] static methods: escape & unescape

$psshell = new-object -com wscript.shell
$oldtarget = [regex]::escape("C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Application
Data\ColligoOfflineClient\Storage3\Files\Sites")
$newtarget = [regex]::escape("C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application
Data\ColligoOfflineClient\storage5\Files\Sites")

get-childitem c:\testshortcut -filter *.lnk -recurse | foreach {
$lnk = $psshell.CreateShortcut($_.fullname)
$oldpath = [regex]::escape($lnk.TargetPath)
if($oldpath -match "ColligoOfflineClient"){
$newpath = $oldpath -replace($oldtarget,$newtarget)
$lnk.TargetPath = [regex]::unescape($newpath)
$lnk.Save()
}
}


-----
Shay Levi
$cript Fanatic
http://scriptolog.blogspot.com

Thanks again. That didn't work out like I had planned, but then I
discovered that there is a difference between -replace and .replace.
Here is the working script and it seems to be working well:

$psshell = new-object -com wscript.shell

get-childitem c:\testshortcut -filter *.lnk -recurse | foreach {
$lnk = $psshell.CreateShortcut($_.fullname)
$oldpath = $lnk.TargetPath
if($oldpath -match "ColligoOfflineClient"){
$newtarget = $oldpath.replace("C:\Documents and Settings
\LocalService\Application Data\ColligoOfflineClient\Storage3\Files
\Sites","C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application
Data\ColligoOfflineClient\storage5\Files\Sites")
$lnk.TargetPath = $newtarget
$lnk.Save()
}
}

I'm amazed on a daily basis by the power (and complexity) of
powershell.

On Oct 31, 2:03 pm, Shay Levi <n...@xxxxxx> wrote:

I need to do something similar and need some assistance. A user has a lot of shortcuts on his desktop that point to c:\data\ and a bunch of subflders. I need to replace just the c:\data portion to \\server\data

From what I understand the final script should do just that but I do not know how to run this script in powershell. I installed powershell 1.0 for Vista x64 Edition (KB928439) but have no idea how to run the script.

Thanks for any help here.

Vista x64 Business machine

Steve Barak.

Hi Steve,

Try this version:


dir "$env:USERPROFILE\desktop" -filter *.lnk -recurse | foreach {
$lnk = $shell.createShortcut($_.fullname)
$oldPath= $lnk.targetPath

if($oldpath -match "^c:\\data"){
$lnk.targetPath = $oldPath -replace "c:\\data","\\server"
$lnk.save()
}
}




---
Shay Levi
$cript Fanatic
http://scriptolog.blogspot.com

How do I actually run the script? Do I have to save it as a .vbs or something?

Put the below in file and save it as a .ps1 file (powershell script file).



####### shortCut.ps1 ######

dir "$env:USERPROFILE\desktop" -filter *.lnk -recurse | foreach {
$lnk = $shell.createShortcut($_.fullname)
$oldPath= $lnk.targetPath

if($oldpath -match "^c:\\data"){
$lnk.targetPath = $oldPath -replace "c:\\data","\\server"
$lnk.save()
}
}


######################


For example, if you saved it to the d:\scripts folder then open PowerShell
console
, type the full path to the script and press enter to excute it:

D:\Scripts\shortCut.ps1





---
Shay Levi
$cript Fanatic
http://scriptolog.blogspot.com