Hello all,

We've been setting up Unattended (and WPKG) for Windows deployment here.
It's a great project, and I'm glad I got it all working. There are a few
things I've had trouble with, and the first was getting rid of that
useless IE icon from the Quick Launch bar.

IE creates the "Launch Internet Explorer Browser.lnk" file the first
time the user logs onto the system. Usually, you would just create a
logon script that deletes it. Unfortunately, the icon will not disappear
(on my test systems this was the case) even though the file is deleted.
Deleting the .lnk file a few seconds after the logon has completed,
though, works flawlessly; the task bar will automatically refresh after
the file is deleted. But it's not pretty.

And secondly, the icon is restored with every "major" IE update installed.

After reading around for several hours, I could not find any decent
solutions to this problem. One suggestion was disabling Quick Launch and
using a different folder for the same purpose. But I couldn't find a way
to make explorer default with some folder OTHER than the default Quick
Launch. So that's no good.


Here's the solution I eventually came up with. First create the Quick
Launch folder in the Default User profile. Then create an empty file in
there called "Launch Internet Explorer Browser.lnk" and set its hidden
attribute.

What happens, then, is when a user first logs on, the default profile is
copied over, along with the hidden faux Quick Launch icon you created.
Then IE will overwrite it with its own .lnk file. The hidden attribute
will stay set, and Explorer will NEVER show the icon in the Quick Launch
bar, even with "show hidden files" enabled and "show super-hidden
files", too.

As a bonus, any IE updates can overwrite the file again and it will
still stay hidden! (At least, until MS decides to force attributes, too.)

In other words, it's not possible to delete it "permanently" ... but you can hide it permanently!


Any way, I hope this helps anyone facing similar issues. I just placed
the attached batch file into my base install, and bye-bye IE icon!
:: Permanently hide the IE icon from the Quick Launch bar
@echo off

mkdir "C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Application 
Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch" >nul
echo "" >"C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Application 
Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Launch Internet Explorer 
Browser.lnk"
attrib +H "C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Application 
Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Launch Internet Explorer 
Browser.lnk" >nul
begin:vcard
fn:Jason Oster
n:Oster;Jason
org:Camp Navajo;Information Technology
adr:Bldg 1;;1 Hughes Ave;Bellemont;AZ;86015;USA
email;internet:[email protected]
title:IT Specialist III
tel;work:928-773-3363
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
url:http://www.campnavajo.com/
version:2.1
end:vcard

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SF.Net email is Sponsored by MIX09, March 18-20, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The future of the web can't happen without you.  Join us at MIX09 to help
pave the way to the Next Web now. Learn more and register at
http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;208669438;13503038;i?http://2009.visitmix.com/
_______________________________________________
unattended-info mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info

Reply via email to