Make a shortcut for application with CSharp

I needed to make a shortcut file (.lnk file) from my CSharp application. As far as I know there is no way to do it directly from the .NET code. Only way is to use Windows API calls or Windows scripting capabilities. I decided to use scripting and here is how it gets done.

First, add a reference to COM-object 'Windows Script Host Object Model' from your project's properties. Secondly, import namespace 'IWshRuntimeLibrary' in your code. And here is the code itself:

private void MakeShortcut(string appDisplayName, string exeFullPath)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(appDisplayName) || string.IsNullOrEmpty(exeFullPath))
    {
        return; // Fail if name or path is missing
    }
    try
    {
        IWshShell_Class wsh = new IWshShell_Class();
        IWshRuntimeLibrary.IWshShortcut shortcut = wsh.CreateShortcut(
            Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop) + "\\" + appName + ".lnk")
            as IWshRuntimeLibrary.IWshShortcut;
        shortcut.Arguments = "";
        shortcut.TargetPath = exeFullPath;
        shortcut.WindowStyle = 1; // Normal window
        shortcut.Description = "Shortcut to " + appName;
        shortcut.WorkingDirectory = "";
        shortcut.IconLocation = exeFullPath;
        shortcut.Save();
    }
    catch
    {

    }
}

I wrote it as a procedure so the code can be easily copy/pasted to other projects as well.

The code above makes a shortcut to Desktop, so change ' Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop' if you need your shortcut to some other place.