How to deploy custom URL shortcuts with Microsoft Intune

Any way to have this force use Internet Explorer? I have some legacy apps that only launch from IE.

Excellent, is there any way to add a custom icon ?

If users don’t have elevated privileges will it still add the shortcut without admin rights?

+My company has Android and Apple devices in Intune. I’ve been tasked with pushing a company website shortcut to all the Apple devices. I tried the script and it immediately says the uploaded file isn’t a valid script. Is there a wayto do this for iOs devices in Intune?

Hi, thanks for the post. is there a universal repository of icons url hosted online that can be used to replace the internet explorer logo? If you know of any kindly point

script is working fine but it is opening in Edge browser, Please suggest, how I can set it as Chrome instead of Edge.

I would love to use this for creating shortcuts but, when I try to run the script in step 1 in an elevated Powershell window I just get the following error:-

Unable to save shortcut “C:\Users\Public\Desktop\Salesforce.url”.
At line:7 char:1
+ $source.Save()
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : OperationStopped: (:) [], COMException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException

Any ideas on how to resolve this?

Many thanks in advance.

Hi,

Can i add more than one shortcut using the above script??

Hi Nicky

How we can delete the shortcut?

Thanks
Roni

Hi Nicky,

Thanks for the script! Is there a line of code or a way to ensure that if an existing shortcut with the same name, i.e. salesforce.url is already present, to overwrite this rather than creating an additional one?

Thanks Nicky! Just in time for my customer. 🙂

Hi Nicky,

I’m able to run local with elevated privileges but this fails as per you script settings. I even select to run on 64bit host as this works on some scripts I’ve deployed via Intune.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

Nicky,

Great script and works like a champ, but I would like to ask about icon again. So I can add the icon file and the extra line to the script, but I would like a suggestion from you. Since the whole point is to push this from InTune, then, in theory, there is no on-prem servers for things like storage of .ico files. If you had no file/DC servers, where in Azure would you store the .ico file itself?

Appreciate any recommendations,
Brian

Hi Nicky,

First of all, thank you for the code, it was exactly what I was looking for and it works brilliantly. Now for the second part, on how to delete previously added links, by googling I found something like this:

$Icon1 = “Salesforce.lnk”
If ((Test-Path “$env:AllUsers\Desktop\$Icon1”) -eq $true)
{
Remove-Item “$($env:AllUsers)\Desktop\$Icon1” –Force
}

Would something like this work?

Regards

Hi,

My script is a bit different, but it does the same thing. When i manually execute it on the desktop , it works perfectly fine, but in the deployment with intune autopilot, it break because it try to put the shortcut in this :
“C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\Desktop\Google-Chrome.lnk”.

I think that it try to put shortcut while being in a special profil for installing so he don’t find the right profil. Here is my script :

$shell = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$appName = “Google-Chrome”
$appPath = “C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe”
$iconPath = $appPath

# Récupération du chemin du profil utilisateur
$userProfile = $env:USERPROFILE
$lg = “Desktop”
$shortcutPath = “$userProfile\$lg\$appName.lnk”
$shortcut = $shell.CreateShortcut($shortcutPath)
$shortcut.TargetPath = $appPath
$shortcut.IconLocation = $iconPath
$shortcut.Save()

$appName = “Wordd”
$appPath = “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\WINWORD.exe”
$iconPath = $appPath

# Récupération du chemin du profil utilisateur
$userProfile = $env:USERPROFILE
$shortcutPath = “$userProfile\$lg\$appName.lnk”
$shortcut = $shell.CreateShortcut($shortcutPath)
$shortcut.TargetPath = $appPath
$shortcut.IconLocation = $iconPath
$shortcut.Save()

# RAJOUTER \OneDrive\ ENTRE USERPROFILE ET LG SI L’UTILISATEUR VA UTILISER ONEDRIVE

Hi There,

I have managed to deploy a shortcut to my desktop following your guide. It also has a custom Icon which is great. Intune has pushed this out perfectly.

however, when double clicking the shortcut on my desktop it comes up with “Missing Shortcut”? Have I done something wrong? This is the code I have used! Any help will be much appreciated.

I also have a URLIcon on my C Drive containing the .ico file.

“FYI Line 3 SourceIcon I have removed the blob storage URL for security reasons on this feed. But rest assured its in there when deploying the script!”

#Variables creating local folder and download .ico file
$LocalIconFolderPath = “C:\URLIcon”
$SourceIcon = “Removed”
$DestinationIcon = “C:\URLIcon\Ulysses Incident Reporting.ico”

#Step 1 – Create a folder to place the URL icon
New-Item $LocalIconFolderPath -Type Directory

#Step 2 – Download a ICO file from a website into previous created folder
curl $SourceIcon -o $DestinationIcon

#Step 3 – Add the custom URL shortcut to your Desktop with custom icon
$new_object = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$destination = $new_object.SpecialFolders.Item(‘AllUsersDesktop’)
$source_path = Join-Path -Path $destination -ChildPath ‘\\Ulysses Incident Reporting.lnk’
$source = $new_object.CreateShortcut($source_path)
$source.TargetPath = ‘ulysses.everyturn.org’
$source.IconLocation = ”C:\URLIcon\Ulysses Incident Reporting.ico”
$source.Save()

Hi Guys, sorry never mind I have got it working! I didnt put in the https:// at the front of my URL

This is now resolved. Thanks for your help!!

Great read and easy-to-follow guide!

Noob question: how often do scripts placed here, run? Every single logon? And if so, does it overwrite this shortcut everytime?

Love the script, makes things so much easier. Unfortunately, its not deploying the shortcut with the .ico. I see that it downloaded the file in question but is not being used as the icon for the shortcut. Thoughts?

Hi all,

Here’s an alternative when trying to create the directory in step 1.
With this piece you can check if the directory already exists and skip creating it.
It prevents the script from throwing an error.
In this way you can use the script again using the same directory name.

#Step 1 – Create directory if doesn’t exist
if (-not (Test-Path -LiteralPath $LocalIconFolderPath)) {

try {
New-Item -Path $LocalIconFolderPath -ItemType Directory -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null #-Force
}
catch {
Write-Error -Message “Unable to create directory ‘$LocalIconFolderPath’. Error was: $_” -ErrorAction Stop
}
“Successfully created directory ‘$LocalIconFolderPath’.”

}
else {
“Directory already exists”
}

Hello

I have a question

Is it possible to make a shortcut for ondrive web, so the user get into .https://thesharepointside.com/personal/theuser/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?view=1 ?

We want to push the shortcut out through intune (Its for a project).

We want the shortcut to take you directly to either “my files” og homepage

Would we achieve the same via Windows Web Link in apps feature in Intune?

Hello,
I followed the instructions, but when deploying the script into Intune, the script fails. When I run the script on my local computer it doesn’t fail. Below is my script for reference.

New-Item “C:\URLIcon” -Type Directory
$new_object = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$destination = $new_object.SpecialFolders.Item(“Desktop”)
$source_path = Join-Path -Path $destination -ChildPath “\\STAT Microsoft 365.lnk”
$source = $new_object.CreateShortcut($source_path)
$source.TargetPath = “https://login.microsoftonline.com/”
$source.IconLocation = ”C:\URLIcon\stat.ico”
$source.Save()

$new_object = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$destination = $new_object.SpecialFolders.Item(“Desktop”)
$source_path = Join-Path -Path $destination -ChildPath “\\LogMeIn.lnk”
$source = $new_object.CreateShortcut($source_path)
$source.TargetPath = “https://accounts.logme.in/login.aspx”
$source.IconLocation = ”C:\URLIcon\logmein.ico”
$source.Save()

$new_object = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$destination = $new_object.SpecialFolders.Item(“Desktop”)
$source_path = Join-Path -Path $destination -ChildPath “\\Paylocity.lnk”
$source = $new_object.CreateShortcut($source_path)
$source.TargetPath = “https://access.paylocity.com/”
$source.IconLocation = ”C:\URLIcon\paylocity.ico”
$source.Save()

Hi Nicky,
Thank you for the script!
Trying to deploy it via the Win32 Intune app, it’s asking for the “uninstall” command. What would I provide if I wanted to remote the shortcut altogether using a separate script?
Thanks again.

Hi Nicky,
Many thanks, Apperciate your efforts.
I tried the script. it is creating the shortcut, crerating the folder, downloading the ico file but the shortcut is taking the icon.
any thoughts?

Hi Nicky,
Many thanks, Apperciate your efforts.
I tried the script. it is creating the shortcut, crerating the folder, downloading the ico file but the shortcut is not taking the icon.
any thoughts?

I ran the script on my personal computer and its working like a charm. you think its failing due to permission issues from intune?

Kind Regards,

Hi Nicky, I figured that icon change need admin privileges. Is there a way to incorporate this within the script?

Kind Regards,

Hello! The following script works for me, but there seem to be a few issues.

Script:

$LocalIconFolderPath = “C:\URLIcon”
$SourceIcon = “URL TO IMAGE HERE”
$DestinationIcon = “C:\URLIcon\IT Support.ico”

New-Item $LocalIconFolderPath -Type Directory

curl $SourceIcon -o $DestinationIcon

$new_object = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$destination = $new_object.SpecialFolders.Item(‘AllUsersDesktop’)
$source_path = Join-Path -Path $destination -ChildPath ‘\\IT Help Desk.lnk’
$source = $new_object.CreateShortcut($source_path)
$source.TargetPath = ‘https://silveredge.service-now.com/esc?id=sc_cat_item&sys_id=4416f6b087e39190d8d821f9cebb35b7’
$source.IconLocation = ”C:\URLIcon\IT Support.ico”
$source.Save()

– Where URL IMAGE HERE i place the URL of the .ico file from our SharePoint page.
– When I run the script, the folder is created in the C drive and the .ico file is placed there. The desktop icon is also created.
– However, the .ico file that is placed in the C drive is just a white piece of paper and that transfers over to the desktop as well. So, the icon i have created does not properly appear.

Do you know how I could get this to appear properly?

Hey Nicky, long time, no see.
Did you ever found if it is possible to create shortcuts on iOS devices? 🙂

Unsure if this is relevant but, found your page today (thanks for the write up) while working on deploying some links. Found that when running the script locally, which I do prior to deploying through intune, that the double quotes around the:
$source.IconLocation = ”C:\URLIcon\IT Support.ico”
were kicking out an error line: blah char:24 which indicated the ” . Upon changing them from double quotes to single quotes, the error went away. Just thought I would mention it in case someone else had issues with getting it to work.