wix - shortcut icon for website - wix

Question

I'm new on wix. In need to create a shortcut to a local website.
It works fine and creates the shorcuts, but it doesn't show any icon on start menu and desktop... The website has favicon file and when I open the site I can see it perfectly - I just don't see it in the shortcut. I tried to google it but I didn't find a good answer for util:InternetShortcut..
My code is:
<DirectoryRef Id="ApplicationProgramsFolder">
<Component Id="ApplicationShortcutBBBApp" Guid="---">
<util:InternetShortcut Id="ApplicationStartMenuShortcutBBBApp"
Name="BBB"
Target="http://localhost/BBB"/>
<util:InternetShortcut Id="ApplicationDesktopShortcutBBBApp"
Name="BBB"
Directory="DesktopFolder"
Target="http://localhost/BBB"/>
<RegistryValue Root="HKCU" Key="Software\Microsoft\BBB" Name="installed" Type="integer" Value="1" KeyPath="yes"/>
</Component>
</DirectoryRef>

Answer 1

There is an easier solution for that problem. Instead of using InternetShortcut, you can just use the normal Shortcut and use a trick to set the target being a url.
<SetProperty Id="URL" Value="http://yourpage.com" Sequence="execute" Before="CreateShortcuts" />
<Shortcut Directory="DesktopFolder" Id="WebShortcut" Name="Your Page" Description="Your Page Description" Target="[URL]" Icon="IconDesktop">
<Icon Id="IconDesktop" SourceFile="images\icon.ico" />
</Shortcut>
"SetProperty" can be placed somewhere in your Product tag.
"Shortcut" should be placed instead of "InternetShortcut".
It is important to have the property [URL] as a Target. As a Property it can be an url. Diretctly written it doese not work.
There might be warnings in heat/candle/light, they can be ignored.

Answer 2

InternetShortcut doesn't support specifying an icon like a normal Shortcut. There's an open feature request for that. Technically, IUniformResourceLocator shortcuts in Windows don't support icons, though IShellLink shortcuts do.

Answer 3

A little late answering this, but just needed to do the same thing. The approach I took was to use the iniFile element to write out a url file.
Two points of interest with this approach:
Since the shortcut is on the desktop and the icon file is located elsewhere on the file system, I needed to create separate components to deploy the icon file.
If the MSI is ran as a normal user with UAC turned on, the icon is not set for the shortcut. Once I disabled UAC prior to installing, the icon was set correctly.
<Fragment>
<DirectoryRef Id="DesktopFolder">
<Component Id="ProductInternetShortcut" Guid="{YOUR_GUID_HERE}" >
<IniFile Id="url_name"
Action="addLine"
Directory="DesktopFolder"
Section="InternetShortcut"
Name="ProductInternetShortcut.url"
Key="URL"
Value="https://my.url.com/" />
<IniFile Id="url_target"
Action="addLine"
Directory="DesktopFolder"
Section="InternetShortcut"
Name="ProductInternetShortcut.url"
Key="Target"
Value="https://my.url.com/" />
<IniFile Id="url_idlist"
Action="createLine"
Directory="DesktopFolder"
Section="InternetShortcut"
Name="ProductInternetShortcut.url"
Key="IDList"
Value=" " />
<IniFile Id="url_HotKey"
Action="addLine"
Directory="DesktopFolder"
Section="InternetShortcut"
Name="ProductInternetShortcut.url"
Key="HotKey"
Value="0" />
<IniFile Id="url_icon"
Action="addLine"
Directory="DesktopFolder"
Section="InternetShortcut"
Name="ProductInternetShortcut.url"
Key="IconFile"
Value="PATH_TO_ICON_FILE_ON_WORKSTATION" />
<IniFile Id="url_iconIndex"
Action="addLine"
Directory="DesktopFolder"
Section="InternetShortcut"
Name="ProductInternetShortcut.url"
Key="IconIndex"
Value="0" />
<RegistryValue Root="HKCU" Key="Software\COMPANY\PRODUCT" Name="installed" Type="integer" Value="1" KeyPath="yes" />
</Component>
</DirectoryRef>
<DirectoryRef Id="ProductFolder">
<Component Id="ShortcutIcons" Guid="{YOUR_GUID_HERE}">
<File Id="filProductIcons" KeyPath="yes" Source="PATH_TO_ICON_FILE_ON_DEVELOPER_MACHINE" />
</Component>
</DirectoryRef>
</Fragment>

Answer 4

In Wix you can create an InternetShortcut with an icon via the InternetShortcut Element (Util Extension).
Below is an example from an app I'm working on of adding a link to a website with an icon via the <InternetShorcut> element and placing that link on both the Desktop and the Start Menu.
Note, you may have to put the "util" prefix in front of the element name like so although I didn't have to do that: <util:InternetShortcut>.
<Directory Id="ProgramMenuFolder" Name="ProgramMenuFolder">
<Directory Id="ProgramMenuFolder.MyApplicationName" Name="MyApplicationName">
<Component Id="Component.Uninstall" Guid="215c7bec-7967-43e6-8f01-72c27fbb2a98">
<CreateFolder/>
<RemoveFolder Id="ProgramMenuFolder.MyApplicationName" On="uninstall"/>
<RegistryKey Root="HKCU" Key="Software\MyCompany\MyApplicationName">
<RegistryValue Value="0" Type="string" KeyPath="yes"/>
</RegistryKey>
</Component>
<Component Id="InternetShortcut" Guid="215c7bec-7967-43e6-8f01-72c22e505f09">
<InternetShortcut
IconFile="[INSTALLDIR]\icon.ico"
IconIndex="0"
Name="Admin Page"
Id="InternetShortcut"
Target="http://localhost:4444"
Type="link"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension"/>
<CreateFolder/>
<RegistryKey Root="HKCU" Key="Software\MyCompany\MyApplicationName">
<RegistryValue Value="0" Type="string" KeyPath="yes"/>
</RegistryKey>
</Component>
</Directory>
</Directory>
<Directory Id="DesktopFolder" Name="DesktopFolder">
<Component Id="InternetShortcut.1" Guid="B27DF351-6EDA-4BEF-A3AC-F12313260203">
<InternetShortcut
IconFile="[INSTALLDIR]\icon.ico"
IconIndex="0"
Name="Admin Page"
Id="InternetShortcut.1"
Target="http://localhost:4444"
Type="link"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension"/>
<CreateFolder/>
<RegistryKey Root="HKCU" Key="Software\MyCompany\MyApplicationName">
<RegistryValue Value="0" Type="string" KeyPath="yes"/>
</RegistryKey>
</Component>
</Directory>
<Feature Id="Complete" Title="Complete" Absent="allow" Level="1">
<ComponentRef Id="InternetShortcut"/>
<ComponentRef Id="InternetShortcut.1"/>
</Feature>
Also, see How To: Create a Shortcut to a Webpage