Creating Internet Shortcuts

A great way of advertising your site is to offer a link from the desktop or Start Menu to your site. To do this, you create a URL file. When this file is double-clicked, it opens up the default browser with the Web Site stored in the file. The structure of the file is as follows.

URL File Structure

A URL file has the extension .URL, and contains the following text:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://www.websiteaddress.com

A Internet Shortcut file that points towards VB-World would have the format:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://www.vb-world.net

Code

The following code creates a Internet Shortcut on the desktop.

'declare variables
Dim StrURLFile As String
Dim StrURLTarget As String
Dim FileNum As Integer

'initialise Variables
StrURLFile = "C:WindowsDesktopVB-World.url"
StrURLTarget = "http://www.vb-world.net"
FileNum = FreeFile

'Write the Internet Shortcut file
Open StrURLFile For Output As FileNum
Print #FileNum, "[InternetShortcut]"
Print #FileNum, "URL=" & StrURLTarget
Close FileNum