I needed an easy way to create .lnk files on the command line, and couldn't find one online that suited me, so I crafted my own.

You can download the binary here and the source code here.

Here's the changelog:

Version 1.2 - 12 Jul 06:

	Standardized version information across all programs

Version 1.1 - 15 Apr 06:

	Added .rc and .ico files
	Improved build scripts
	Updated documentation

Version 1.0 - 01 Mar 06:

	Initial release

and here's the readme.txt:

mklnk 1.2 - Jul 19 2006
Copyright (c) 2005-2006 Ross Smith II (http://smithii.com) All Rights Reserved

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Usage: mklnk [options] target.exe [link.lnk]

 target.exe   Name of target, use quotes if it contains spaces
 link.lnk     Name of link, use quotes if it contains spaces
              Default is to use the target's name

Options (defaults in parentheses):
-l | --link-name version_info  Use 'version_info' data in target.exe for the
                               link name: ProductName, FileDescription, etc.
-a | --arguments "arg1 arg2"   Command arguments if any, use quotes if needed
-c | --comment   "a comment"   Link comment, use quotes if needed (none)
-d | --directory               Startup directory for shortcut (none)
-s | --show                    Show: 1/normal, 2/maximized, 7/minimized (1)
-i | --icon      ex.ico        .ico or .dll containing icon to display
                               (default is to use icon 0 in target.exe)
-n | --icon-no   index         Integer index of icon in icon file (0)
-t | --target-directory dir    Create link in directory 'dir' (.)
-v | --version                 Show version and copyright and quit
-? | --help                    Show this help message and quit

Examples:

mklnk -a "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%" %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe "Command Prompt"
mklnk -a "--login -i" -i C:\cygwin\cygwin.ico -s7 C:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe "Bash"

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More Examples:

mklnk -a /e,"%USERPROFILE%\Desktop" c:\windows\explorer.exe "%USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Desktop"
mklnk -a "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\todo.txt" c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\To Do List"

rem create a link named "Windows Backup Utility.lnk":

mklnk -l FileDescription c:\windows\system32\ntbackup.exe