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Create Shortcuts on a USB Drive
Posted by Adam Pash at 9:00 AM on July 26, 2008
Samer from the FreewareGenius weblog steps away from reviewing software to take a look at how to create shortcuts on your USB drive. The problem: You can't create relative shortcuts in Windows, but since your USB drive letter can change each time you plug it in, shortcuts with full paths can break. Samer details how to use batch files to create shortcuts with relative paths, then goes a step further and converts the batch file to an EXE and gives it the same icon as the program it's launching. In his example, he's making a quick shortcut to Eject the USB drive using previously mentioned EjectUSB. If you're a real thumb drive junky, you can use batch files to quick-launch your USB workspace as soon as you plug in your thumb drive.
Tags: organise | shortcuts | thumb drives
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
engunneer
Posted 1:55 PM 26/7/08
One of the members of the AutoHotkey forum has written a similar script that automatically rebuilds all of the links to your portable applications. It even shows the drive letter in the system notification area if you desire. The relevant AutoHotkey forum thread is here: [www.autohotkey.com]
Note that there is an updated version linked from the first post.
engunneer
SirSmiley
Posted 12:28 PM 26/7/08
@Dror Snir:
@Quantenmechaniker:
Those are great suggestions when dealing with one or even a few computers but, when dealing with a network it may be unproductive.
Something similar that creates Dynamic Shortcuts on the desktop, essentially on-the-fly, came out of a thread over at DonationCoder. [www.donationcoder.com]
SirSmiley
brainwav
Posted 11:08 AM 26/7/08
My iPod ALWAYS gets I:. I set it that way. If you set a letter that's sufficiently far from the beginning of the alphabet (G: or H: should be fine for a normal user), that device should always get the same letter.
brainwav
Quantenmechaniker
Posted 10:30 AM 26/7/08
Or you can use USBDLM (USB Drive Letter Manager) [www.uwe-sieber.de] and finally manage your USB devices the way you want, including giving the same device the same drive letter every time you plug it in :)
Quantenmechaniker
Dror Snir
Posted 10:24 AM 26/7/08
Why not simply assign a permanent drive letter? For example on Vista:
->right-click "My Computer"
->"Manage"
->"Disk Management"
->Right click the drive and select "Change drive letter and path"
->Click "Change" and select the new drive letter
->Hit OK twice.
This works fine for me - I simply assign letters toward the end of the alphabet, so as not to have conflicts with temporary usb devices (I had a conflict once between a Novel shared drive and a usb device which was very annoying)
Dror Snir
MadModderX
Posted 10:10 AM 26/7/08
Nice find!
Going between computers just got a bit easier.
MadModderX
cisengineer
Posted 2:54 PM 26/7/08
@Dror Snir: Have you ever plugged in a usb key at a computer lab or public workstation?
cisengineer
Track
Posted 7:49 PM 26/7/08
awesome tip! now I can easily start my portable firefox whereever :D
Track
Jim (The Canuck One)
Posted 9:59 PM 26/7/08
@cisengineer: Or your own on-the-job workstation where access to those config tools is locked out (and if you find a way to get around the lockout, you get a phone call to come "chat" with HR.)
Jim (The Canuck One)
Dror Snir
Posted 12:17 AM 27/7/08
@cisengineer: It seems I completely failed to register the fact that this article is about creating shortcuts *on* the usb drive itself. My bad.
Dror Snir
lordargent
Posted 1:25 PM 27/7/08
Don't the Sandisk line of USB drives come with a menu system by default.
lordargent
mattc
Posted 11:06 PM 30/7/08
@lordargent: The one's that are U3-enabled have the menu your talking about.
mattc
mps69
Posted 1:13 AM 27/7/08
For me the easier option was to run RKLauncher from the USB drive, having it auto start when it was plugged in.
Then edit this to ignore the drive letter the PC allocated to have all my shortcuts to appear in the dock, no matter what PC I plug into all my shortcuts are in the same place every time.
mps69