Vista - How to edit shell commands?

I'd like to edit a shortcut link supplied by a software vendor... in windows
xp, shell commands (like show desktop) were a fairly simple text file with
..scf extension, and were easily edited...

In Vista, however, unless I am doing something wrong, sending the shortcut
link to notepad results in scrambled looking code... is there a new type of
shell command handling in Vista?

Thanks