How do I "persuade" programs open an actual .lnk file in Windows 7?

Question

A .lnk file in Windows is an actual file intended to be a shortcut to another file. However, I really do want to view the contents on the .lnk file itself. I'm finding it literally impossible to do so; no matter what I try, my applications are opening the contents of the file it points to (drag/drop into text or hex editor, file | open from text or hex editor, etc.)

Is there some way I can tell a program to actually open the .lnk file instead of the file it points to?

Solution 1

Opening shortcuts

In order to edit a shortcut you obviously need to open it first, and that proves to be tricky. In some cases you can force programs into loading shortcut files by using a command-line argument:

"X:\Path\to\program.exe" "X:\my shortcut.lnk"

Whether the link target or the actual shortcut file is loaded depends on the program, though. Here's a list (in no particular order) of some free hex editors which supports them out of the box:

• HxD

  Open dialog Yes
  Drag-and-drop No

• XVI32, Free Hex Editor Neo, Tiny Hexer, wxHexEditor, Hex-Editor MX, Frhed

  Open dialog No
  Drag-and-drop Yes

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Workaround

In case you're unable to load the content of a shortcut file, you can open a command prompt and rename the .lnk file to a different, non-existent extension such as .lne:

cd /d "X:\Folder\containing\shortcuts"
ren "my shortcut.lnk" "my shortcut.lne"

If you have multiple files you can also rename all of them at once:

ren *.lnk *.lne

You will be then able to treat those shortcuts just like regular files. When you're done, make sure to rename them back to restore their usual functionality.

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Additional information

A shortcut, or shell link, contains metadata information used to access a specific link target. It's parsed and interpreted by the Windows shell. From the official documentation:

The shell link structure stores various information that is useful to end users, including:

• A keyboard shortcut that can be used to launch an application.

• A descriptive comment.

• Settings that control application behavior.

• Optional data stored in extra data sections.

_{Source: [MS-SHLLINK]: Shell Link (.LNK) Binary File Format - Overview}

Shortcuts are stored as binary files, and can't be edited using a standard text editor. A typical .lnk file looks something like this internally:

00000000  4C 00 00 00 01 14 02 00 00 00 00 00 C0 00 00 00  L...........À...
00000010  00 00 00 46 DC 03 00 02 20 00 00 00 C6 EF 52 BE  ...FÜ... ...ÆïR¾
00000020  10 04 CA 01 C6 EF 52 BE 10 04 CA 01 60 45 8A 67  ..Ê.ÆïR¾..Ê.`EŠg
00000030  20 04 CA 01 00 9A 04 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00   .Ê..š..........

The first twenty bytes are always the following ones:

4C 00 00 00 01 14 02 00 00 00 00 00 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 46

Further reading

• [MS-SHLLINK]: Shell Link (.LNK) Binary File Format
• LNK - Forensics Wiki

Solution 2

I've tried this and it works for me on Windows 8.1:

Opening LNK files in Notepad:

• Just drag and drop them into the Notepad window. If you open them from the Open dialog, Notepad will open the EXE file pointed to by the LNK file.

Opening LNK files in HxD hex editor:

• Open them as you would any file using the Open dialog (File → Open)

Opening LNK files using the command prompt:

• Navigate to the folder containing the LNK files and type the command: TYPE SHORTCUTNAME.LNK

Opening LNK files in just about any program:

• Start the command prompt, navigate to the folder where the program is located, use the command: PROGRAM_NAME.EXE "path to LNK file"

Solution 3

The whole point of a .lnk file is for Windows to treat it as a link to another file so it should be hard to edit!

Perhaps it would help if you described WHY you want to edit it. You can change the settings of a .lnk file by right-clicking and choosing Properties.

If you really want to edit it, you need a special tool. There are a few of these including:

• lnk-parser
• LnkEditorGUI
• lnkedit

NB: I've not tried any of these, just Googled them.

UPDATE:

Don't know why I didn't think of this before but you can edit the properties via PowerShell. From this previous answer on Stack Overflow:

Copy-Item $sourcepath $destination  ## Get the lnk we want to use as a template
$shell = New-Object -COM WScript.Shell
$shortcut = $shell.CreateShortcut($destination)  ## Open the lnk
$shortcut.TargetPath = "C:\path\to\new\exe.exe"  ## Make changes
$shortcut.Description = "Our new link"  ## This is the "Comment" field
$shortcut.Save()  ## Save

As this uses the Shell COM object, you could also do this with WSH or even VBA in Office!

Solution 4

.LNK files are interpreted by the shell. If you open up a command prompt and invoke your editing tool (let's just say Notepad for example) using the .LNK file as an argument, that should bypass the shell and open up the contents of the .LNK file itself.

notepad.exe shortcut.lnk

Solution 5

If you use CMD to run a program with the link file as a parameter, that parameter is passed verbatim to the program. It is up to the program to decide how to handle the link.

I have tested this with FRHED, the freeware (and portable) hex editor: when you run it from the command line, passing a link as parameter, it prompts you whether you want to open the file linked to (Yes), the link itself (No), or Cancel.

Oddly, if you use Open within the FRHED File menu, it opens the target file without asking.

On XP I have FRHED in my SendTo context menu, and that works the same way as CMD. I imagine Win7 is similar (I use a Win7 system for a dedicated application, and I will do simple tests on it, as above, but I don't mess with its configuration).

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Comments

[Jon]

You can always rename it to .txt or something. Usually this doesn't cause it to lose any data.

[287352]

@Chipperyman Except that that doesn't work. You cannot easily rename .lnk files with a new extension.

[Jez]

I want to edit its contents, preferably in a hex editor, because I think it might be corrupt and I don't trust Explorer to properly tell me its contents.

[Julian Knight]

I suppose that recreating it is out then? If so, try one of the editors though I'm not sure what would have corrupted it.

[Jez]

Nope, that doesn't work. It opens up the file the .lnk points to.

[Vinayak]

That is incorrect. I've tried this answer and it does work.

[Vinayak]

That isn't Windows prompting you. That's Frhed asking you what to do

[AFH]

Quite right: silly of me - I'll change my answer.

[Jon]

@Vinayak That's a pretty bold statement. It may work for you in the situation you are using it in but it might not work for Jez.

[Julian Knight]

The price of progress! Not much point in having a mechanism to define links that most apps then ignore. I don't know of many reasons to need to edit .lnk's directly.

[Jez]

Using HxD to open it via File | Open actually seems to have opened the .lnk file. Thanks.

[Chris H]

@JulianKnight I had a use once for generating them programmatically for placement in a folder that acted as an index. I had to assume no rights to install software, but we were already using VBA. Modifying a template .lnk proved easier than generating one from scratch.

[Julian Knight]

Interesting use case. That hadn't occurred to me, I must admit.

[Scott - Слава Україні]

I find putting Notepad into my SendTo menu to be very useful, letting me open any file (including shortcuts) in Notepad.

[AFH]

Final (?) observation: any DOS-based view or edit program will always open the link, never the target, since the DOS file open function does not know anything about links, so makes no special handling for them, unlike the Windows file open.

[and31415]

@Jez I've updated my post to include some extra information. Let me know if you have any further questions.