How to copy and send a shortcut via email?

[ScotH]

If you try to create and send a shortcut via Outlook, the shortcut will be replaced(upon inserting in the message) by the file that the shortcut originally pointed to. For example, if have a shortcut to TEST.MDW and send it to a user, they will instead receive the actual TEST.MDW file. Does anyone know if there is a way to distribute shortcut files without encountering this problem?

 

[mcconmw]

changing the extension to something useless and including instructions for the user to change it back should work. I haven't tested it though.

 

[grygst76]

put it on a local share and when emailing the user write out the shortcut i.e \\sharename\folder\file
and when they click on it it will bring them to the file without giving it to them per say

 

[ScotH]

Here's what I have found. It is not possible (from what I can see) to change the name of a shortcut in Windows and still prevent it from converting to the actual file when sent via email. What I had to do was go to the DOS prompt, change the file extension from LNK to LN_, email that file, and then rename the extension to LNK. Once the icon file name is renamed to LNK, it appears as a normal shortcut icon. The idea of sending the users the \\sharename\folder\file path works, but I really wanted to present an icon to the users. Thanks for the ideas!