1
I have 2 versions of a program installed, the stable and beta versions. The executable name for each is shared.
Example:
Stable: C:/some/path/program.exe
Beta: C:/some/other/path/program.exe
Shortcuts to both executables have been made and placed into %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
with different names.
This should mean I am able to see a shortcut to both versions in the Start menu, but that's not what happens. Instead, only the first shortcut appears in the list. Renaming the shortcut file that is missing from the list to something that would alphabetically place it before the other causes it to appear instead.
Here's another example to help illustrate:
If these exist in the Start Menu\Programs
folder:
Program.lnk
Program Beta.lnk
Then only this will appear in Start:
Program
HOWEVER
If these exist in the Start Menu\Programs
folder:
Program.lnk
aaaProgram Beta.lnk
Then only this will appear in Start, because it alphabetically precedes the other:
aaaProgram Beta
My question is, how do I get both shortcuts to appear in the Start menu?
I just tried this and now neither of them appear in my Start menu. Rather confusing. – Pyroglyph – 2019-04-28T13:19:45.073
Weird. Mine are still there. What version of Windows? I;m 1803 here. – Keith Miller – 2019-04-28T17:17:15.190
I'm on build 17763 – Pyroglyph – 2019-04-29T17:09:27.110
17134.706 here. But let's try some troubleshooting. Given the behavior of the Start Menu, let's check for shortcuts that might have the same target. The following comment is a PowerShell one-liner. Copy and paste into PowserShell and see what paths are returned. You'll have to edit the match string as you don't provide an actual executable name. – Keith Miller – 2019-04-29T19:59:33.677
$wshShell = New-Object -ComObject wscript.shell; 'StartMenu', 'AllUsersStartMenu' | %{gci "$($wshShell.SpecialFolders($))*.lnk" -recurse | ?{($wshShell.CreateShortcut($.fullName)).TargetPath -match 'myprogram'} | select fullname} – Keith Miller – 2019-04-29T20:02:14.353
I get back these 4 lines:
C:\Users\[me]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Blender Beta.lnk
C:\Users\[me]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Blender.lnk
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Blender Beta.lnk
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Blender.lnk
– Pyroglyph – 2019-04-30T20:23:54.483I'd delete them all and then try adding recreating just one. You did create a junction with a .exe extension to rename the beta version, right? Are the targets different for the shortcuts? If you matched on 'Blender', that would match on both 'Blender' & 'Blender Beta' – Keith Miller – 2019-04-30T21:15:18.180
After deleting them all and starting again, I did some testing and found out that symlinks just don't show up in the Start menu at all. And I'm not sure what you mean by
create a junction with a .exe extension to rename the beta version
, aren't junctions for directories? The targets for the shortcuts are entirely different apart from the executable name, which is the same. – Pyroglyph – 2019-05-01T15:18:18.713Also, if I rename one of the exe files to something else and update the shortcut it works, but it'd be annoying to have to do that every time the software has an update. It looks to me like the Start menu itself is saying "oh, these 2 shortcuts have the same executable name, so they must be the same" despite the fact that they and their paths are completely different. – Pyroglyph – 2019-05-01T15:23:05.670
My apologies, it is a symlink and not a junction, but for me, the symlink works fine as the target of a shortcut, and subsequently, that shortcut works in the Start Menu. I'm going to edit my post to show formatted output & screenshots. – Keith Miller – 2019-05-01T15:45:15.177
Since symlinks and shortcurs just don't seem to be working properly on my machine, I've ended up just creating a batch script that launches one of the executables and pointed one of the shortcuts to that instead of the executable itself. This workaround seems to be the only option that actually works for me. I appreciate the effort you've put into helping me though. – Pyroglyph – 2019-05-02T13:28:23.603