How to add a shortcut to the exe file in the setup project?

Question

How to add a shortcut to an exe file in the setup? I've created an app and a setup project for it. I've followed the steps here but it doesn't work - it creates shortcut to the original file (C:....\Visual Studio 2008\Projects...") so it works only on my computer. It doesn't point to the real output file.

Answer 1

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sat42980.aspx

Answer 2

Right click your exe file listed in the File System Browser in Setup Project. Choose Create Shortcut.

If you want to place this shortcut in desktop drag the shortcut file to User's Desktop folder.

If you want to place the shortcut in a folder in program menu then add a folder under User's Program Menu folder and drag the shortcut to that folder.

Answer 3

I'm not sure the steps on the knowledge base article are helpful (at least they aren't to me).

When I was learning how to do this, the one mysterious step that always seemed to be omitted, is how to get to the file system editor.

The best/only way I know of is to right-click the Setup Project and choose View -> File System. From there, you can add symbolic links to files that will be created when the setup program actually runs. The file system you are viewing is a placeholder for the user's file system at install time.