PRB: *No Shortcut Appears on Desktop After Application Assigned Through GPO (306276)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows Installer 1.1
  • Microsoft Windows Installer 1.2
  • Microsoft Windows Installer 2.0
This article was previously published under Q306276

SYMPTOMS

When you use Group Policy Object (GPO) to assign an application to users, the shortcut for the application does not appear on the user's desktop.

CAUSE

The cause of this problem is that the shortcuts in the Shortcut table of the .msi package are not Windows Installer advertised shortcuts. They are instead regular .lnk files, which will be created when the application is installed locally.

RESOLUTION

The resolution is to change the shortcuts in the Shortcut table of the .msi file to make the shortcuts advertised. For an advertised shortcut, the Target column must be an external key (foreign key) to the first column of the Feature table. In your authoring tool, verify that the target of the shortcut is pointing to a feature, not a file.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior
  1. Create an .msi package or choose an existing .msi file.
  2. Create a nonadvertised shortcut (a regular .lnk file that points to a file instead of a feature) for the .msi package.
  3. Save the .msi package and use GPO to assign the package to a group of users.

    When a user from that group logs on to the computer, no shortcuts appear on the user's desktop.

REFERENCES

For additional information on how advertised shortcuts work, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

243630 INFO: How Windows Installer Shortcuts Work

302430 How to Deploy Software to a Specific Group with Group Policies

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:10/2/2003
Keywords:kbMSIFAQ kbprb KB306276
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.