See also Installing Shortcuts
Most applications are installed with shortcuts to their various components on the Windows Desktop, Start menu, or Programs menu. The Project - Shortcuts page lets you define the shortcuts that must be installed for your application.
Shortcuts in a Tarma QuickInstall project point to the installation file or folder that they address, not to the corresponding source file. After all, the source file path becomes irrelevant once the installation files are added to the Setup package or installed on the customer's computer. In practice, this means that the shortcut target path looks something like <AppFolder>\application.exe. At installation time, Setup replaces the symbolic path by the actual location of the target file or folder.
The Project - Shortcuts page consists of two parts:
You can select more than one shortcut at a time; in that case, the shortcut settings apply to all selected shortcuts at once. Click on the links above for further information.
You can use both executable files and non-executable ("document") files as target for a shortcut, as well as folders. When the customer uses the shortcut to access the target file or folder after installation, the Windows Shell determines how to handle the situation: executable files are run as programs; other files are opened with their associated application, if known to Windows (if not, Windows will display the Open With... dialog to let the customer select a suitable application); and folders are opened in Windows Explorer. Therefore, you can use shortcuts not only for your application's main executable, but also for other files and folders that must be accessible to the customer, for example online help and other electronic documentation.
We will use "target file" if we refer to the target file or folder proper, and "shortcut application" to denote the application program selected by Windows when the customer uses the shortcut after installation. For executable target files, "target file" and "shortcut application" refer to one and the same file; for folders and document files, the two are distinct.
Shortcuts are automatically installed and removed with their target file. If the target file is not installed, for example because of platform or language restrictions, then neither is the shortcut. Therefore, Tarma QuickInstall provides no separate platform or other installation-related options for shortcuts; any installation conditions must be set through the associated target file.
Note - Shortcuts to folders are always installed and removed with the application, irrespective of any other settings.
Note that this feature also allows you to create language-specific shortcuts, for example by providing documentation in several languages with separate, localized shortcuts to each of the documentation files. Tarma QuickInstall will ensure that only the appropriate documentation files will be installed along with any associated shortcuts.
Tip - The Shortcuts list contains the command Go to Target File that gives you immediate access to the associated target file.
Tarma QuickInstall installs all individual shortcuts and your application's Program group, if any, as common to all users. On Windows 9x systems, this has no special implications because many of those systems do not maintain per-user Desktop settings anyway, and require no special provisions if they do. Windows NT systems are a different story, however. On those systems, installation of common (or "All Users") shortcuts requires elevated privileges: at least a Power User account on Windows 2000 and XP; nothing less than Administrator on Windows NT 4.0. (On Windows XP Home, the single user automatically has the equivalent of Administrator rights.)
The reason that Tarma QuickInstall defaults to creating Common shortcuts despite these requirements, is that the alternative is usually even less desirable. Because of the nature of Windows, most customers expect an application to be available to all users who share a computer, and achieving this through per-user shortcuts for all (local) users of a system is even more troublesome (and requires higher privileges) than using Common shortcuts in the first place.
Note - As of release 2.33, Tarma QuickInstall allows you to redefine the value of the <Desktop>, <Programs>, and <StartMenu> project variables. Among other things, this makes it possible to specify installation of a program group and shortcuts for the current user rather than common to all users. The Frequently Asked Questions section contains a number of topics that explain how to choose a common or current user program group and shortcuts.