Excel VBA: How To: Shell (Execute) thru a Shortcut ???

Esteemed Forum Participants and Lurkers:
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Excel 2003

Has anyone used a Windows "Shortcut" as an indirect address for a "Shell" command to execute a program with command line parameters?

This would allow me to drag a shortcut to any users "C:\" root directory and use the shortcut to get to other resources, such as Adobe Distiller or whatever. In some cases that would be simpler than trying to dig the correct version of the correct executable out of the Registry, especially where there may be several versions of the program on the machine.

Thank you for any and all comments, suggestions, and assistance with this inquiry.

You can shellexecute the shortcut file which has an hidden .lnk extension even when the file has a extension.

VB Code:

Option Explicit
 
Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As String, _
ByVal lpFile As String, ByVal lpParameters As String, ByVal lpDirectory As String, ByVal nShowCmd As Long) As Long
 
Private Const SW_SHOWNORMAL As Long = 1
Private Const SW_SHOWMINIMIZED As Long = 2
Private Const SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED As Long = 3
 
Private Const ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND As Long = 2&
Private Const ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND As Long = 3&
Private Const ERROR_BAD_FORMAT As Long = 11&
Private Const SE_ERR_ACCESSDENIED As Long = 5
Private Const SE_ERR_ASSOCINCOMPLETE As Long = 27
Private Const SE_ERR_DDEBUSY As Long = 30
Private Const SE_ERR_DDEFAIL As Long = 29
Private Const SE_ERR_DDETIMEOUT As Long = 28
Private Const SE_ERR_DLLNOTFOUND As Long = 32
Private Const SE_ERR_FNF As Long = 2
Private Const SE_ERR_NOASSOC As Long = 31
Private Const SE_ERR_OOM As Long = 8
Private Const SE_ERR_PNF As Long = 3
Private Const SE_ERR_SHARE As Long = 26
 
Private Sub Command1_Click()
    On Error GoTo MyError
    Dim lRet As Long
    lRet = ShellExecute(0, "Open", "C:\Shortcut to Test.bat.lnk", vbNullString, "C:\", SW_SHOWNORMAL)
    If lRet <= 32 Then
        Select Case lRet
            Case 0
                MsgBox "The operating system is out of memory or resources."
            Case ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND
                MsgBox "The specified file was not found."
            Case ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND
                MsgBox "The specified path was not found."
            Case ERROR_BAD_FORMAT
                MsgBox "The .EXE file is invalid (non-Win32 .EXE or error in .EXE image)."
            Case SE_ERR_ACCESSDENIED
                MsgBox "The operating system denied access to the specified file."
            Case SE_ERR_ASSOCINCOMPLETE
                MsgBox "The filename association is incomplete or invalid."
            Case SE_ERR_DDEBUSY
                MsgBox "The DDE transaction could not be completed because other DDE transactions were being processed."
            Case SE_ERR_DDEFAIL
                MsgBox "The DDE transaction failed."
            Case SE_ERR_DDETIMEOUT
                MsgBox "The DDE transaction could not be completed because the request timed out."
            Case SE_ERR_DLLNOTFOUND
                MsgBox "The specified dynamic-link library was not found."
            Case SE_ERR_FNF
                MsgBox "The specified file was not found."
            Case SE_ERR_NOASSOC
                MsgBox "There is no application associated with the given filename extension."
            Case SE_ERR_OOM
                MsgBox "There was not enough memory to complete the operation."
            Case SE_ERR_PNF
                MsgBox "The specified path was not found."
            Case SE_ERR_SHARE
                MsgBox "A sharing violation occurred."
        End Select
    End If
    Exit Sub
MyError:
    MsgBox Err.Number & " - " & Err.Description
End Sub