The Microsoft MSIX Packaging Tool (MMPT) will intentionally ignore certain application shortcuts, or give you more than you wanted.  The evidence of what the installer did is still normally inside the package, just not exposed to the end-user and TMEditX can in most cases add these back into the package.

Examples that will be missed:

  • Shortcuts that are lnk files that point to a captured file that is not an exe.  This includes anything that isn't an exe, but often we see captured document files like .docx, .pdf, and .txt being the target.  TMEditX will restore these by using PsfLauncher, which will determine the default application to run with this file-type as registered on the system.
  • Shortcuts that are lnk files that point to an exe that is not in the package.  TMEditX will restore those that are well-known system executables (like cmd.exe, notepad.exe, powershell.exe) by using PsfLauncher.  Non-well known executables are not supported.
  • Shortcuts that are lnk files that point to a http or https reference. TMEditX will restore these.
  • Shortcuts that are .url files that point to a http or https reference. TMEditX will restore these.
  • Shortcuts that are lnk files with arguments.  These were originally ignored but recent versions of the MMPT try to bring them in, sometimes successfully.  TMEditX will restore or fix these.
  • Shortcuts that were placed in the "Startup" folder.  TMEditX will detect and restore these.
  • Multiple shortcuts that target the same exe, the MMPT only supports one of them.  TMEditX will restore those that have different command line arguments.

Often TMEditX will be using PsfLauncher to achieve these goals.

Also:

  • The MMPT may also capture shortcuts created by the installer to the user's desktop.  These are usually not desired in the package and TMEditX will by default remove these from the package.  There is a TMEditX configuration (and command line override) to not do this.  
  • The MMPT used to ignore shortcut folders.  Now it supports them.  TMEditX will look at the original shortcut folders and make sure they are in the package.  Unless there ends up being only one shortcut, in which case it will remove the shortcut folder to keep it simple for the end-user.