distribution kit short cuts

[mrbean]

Within LabWindows/CVI 7.1, I'm doing a Build::Create Distribution Kit and I'm trying to create a shortcut. The shortcut, however, is not to the exe, but rather, I have a start.bat file that is one of the files installed at the target. After it's installed, in the directory C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup I'd like to create a shortcut to start.bat so that start.bat will run automatically when the target is powered up. start.bat would kick off a few things then my cvi application.

Is there a way to tell the install to grab the start.bat that I've just installed and create a shortcut to it as decribed above?

Similarly, would it be possible to remove a file that is in the directory C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

[Wendy L]

Hello mrbean,

When you are creating your distribution kit, I would suggest creating two file groups:
- one that includes all your project files
- and one that include the batch file

Then, do not create a shortcut for your project file group (Select None under Create Shortcuts). Instead, create a shortcut for your batch file group.

Let me know how this works.

[mrbean]

Your suggestion worked perfectly - then a co-worker changed the requirements on me. Here's the current scenario. I hope I explain this properly. What I ultimately want to do is have the executable and some UIRs placed in the install directory. I then want to place a shortcut to the exe into C:\Documents and Settings\amt\Start Menu\Programs\Startup which (on the target) gets run automatically at boot time (of the target device). I'm not sure, though, how to create this shortcut since normally one would intall the executable on the target and in Explorer (at the target) I would copy the shortcut from the install dir to the C:\Documents and Settings\amt\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. The problem, though is that if I create a shortcut at the development PC, which has a different directory structure than the target, but I tell the distribution kit to put this shortcut into ..Startup, the source associated to the shortcut doesn't exist - it's at the development PC, not the target. If this makes any sense, is there a way to tell the install to create a shortcut to the exe found on the target and place it in the ..\Startup directory.

[DaveC]

MrBean,

If I understand correctly, you wish to create a shortcut to your .bat file in the windows startup directory of the target machine. As of right now, you manually create a shorcut to the .bat file on the development machine and tell labwindows to install the pre-created shortcut into the startup folder of the target machine.

Instead of doing this, you could skip the whole manual shortcut creation step. In the 2nd file group that you have, take out the manually created shortcut and leave only the .bat file. Set the 'Group Destination' for the .bat file group to 'Application Directory'. Now set the 'Create Shortcut' option to 'Windows Startup' (I am working with 7.0 here so the nomenclature might be slightly different for you).

Now when you install your program, CVI will automatically create a shortcut to wherever the .bat file is installed on the target machine and the corresponding shortcut will be placed in the wintows startup directory.

Hope this helps.