Every item below Programs on a Start menu and every object you have placed on the desktop is a shortcut. Windows relies heavily on shortcuts to make its operation appear more intuitive and requiring fewer mouse clicks. When you double click on a shortcut, the target of the shortcut will be executed. If the target is a program, the program will be launched and if the target is a data file, then the data file will be opened in the associated application. Utilities such as the Norton Navigator create even more shortcuts to customize the environment and remember most recently used files for each user. Each shortcut occupies about one kilobyte of disk space.
If you want to execute more than one program with a single shortcut, the general solution in Windows is to create a batch file, which contains the command lines to launch one or more programs and to set the target of the shortcut to this batch file.
In Windows NT only, you can launch multiple programs from a single shortcut by separating the commands in the target by an ampersand sign. For example, the following text in the target field will launch both Explorer and Write.
C:\WinNT\System32\CMD.EXE /C "explorer.exe&write.exe"
Under the Windows NT command processor, the ampersand character functions as a command separator in the command stack. You can string together commands separated by ampersands and they will all be executed. The example shown above actually launches and instance of CMD.EXE, the Windows NT command processor. The /C command line switch indicates that this instance of the command processor should execute the remainder of the command line and then terminate. Further information on the Windows NT command processor and command stacks can be found in the section on command separators.
If the target file is moved or renamed, the connection between the shortcuts pointing to it and the file is broken. If you delete the target file, the shortcut remains on the disk creating confusion and occupying disk space needlessly. Shortcuts have the default extension lnk.
For more information see:
Finding All Shortcuts to a File