How to Get the Description of an Internet Shortcut

  • Thread starter Thread starter Charles
  • Start date Start date
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Charles

I realise this isn't really the place to ask this, but everyone here is so
knowledgeable that I thought I would give it a try.

In my Favorites folder I have lots of Internet shortcuts; links with a .url
extension. I now know these are in INI file format.

When I hover over some of them, Windows Explorer shows me not only the URL
of the target but also a description. My question is, where does this
description come from? I've Googled a bit but the search words are generic
so nothing is turning up. There isn't an obvious Description key in the
[InternetShortcut] section in the file, so where does it come from?

TIA

Charles
 
I first noticed it in a tool called Check&Get, which scans Favorites and
tests to see if they are valid. For each one it has a Description column,
which is occasionally filled in.

When I went to the Favorites folder in Explorer and hovered over one of the
entries I noticed that the pop-up tip had two lines: the first had the same
description as Check&Get and the second line was the URL.

Looking again I see this is actually very rare, and most entries in Explorer
don't pop up a description, even though Check&Get has a description for
quite a few of the sites.

I don't think it is Check&Get that is creating the pop-up description, I
think it is Explorer, but I don't know where it gets it from.

My Internet shortcuts frequently have the same entries as you have shown
below, but there is no Description entry.

Charles


HillBilly said:
Are you perceiving the filename of the Favorite as the text which is some
sort of description?

Here's one of my Favorites starting with how I see it using Windows
Explorer:

// the filename description of the Favorite
C# Reference

// the contents of C# Reference
[DEFAULT]
BASEURL=http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/618ayhy6.aspx
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/618ayhy6.aspx
Modified=103B080D9CB8C6017B


Charles said:
I realise this isn't really the place to ask this, but everyone here is so
knowledgeable that I thought I would give it a try.

In my Favorites folder I have lots of Internet shortcuts; links with a
.url extension. I now know these are in INI file format.

When I hover over some of them, Windows Explorer shows me not only the
URL of the target but also a description. My question is, where does this
description come from? I've Googled a bit but the search words are
generic so nothing is turning up. There isn't an obvious Description key
in the [InternetShortcut] section in the file, so where does it come
from?

TIA

Charles
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