Creating a Custom Start Menu Shortcut Link for a Visual Studio Setup Project

Question

Is it possible to create a custom start menu shortcut link?

The only possibilities I see in the setup project are shortcuts to folders or primary output.

Update:

What I ended up doing is creating a custom action on commit that dynamically creates the link using Windows Scripting Host. Then on uninstall, removing the link.

Answer 1

It does not appear that you can create a shortcut to arbitrary items using the VS setup project. I believe it is possible to do this using WiX or other installers that give you more flexibility in your setup projects, but you pay for this with more complexity in the installer project.

You can create shortcuts to any files that are part of your setup program (i.e. primary output, folders), primary output and folders are not the only two options there, but the files you are going to point the shortcut to need to be part of the setup project.