The size of shortcut (.lnk) files on my computer (Windows 7) ranges from 235 to 15,881 bytes, with an average of 2,395 bytes.
In Microsoft's documentation of the shortcut file format, it contains an extraordinary amount of information, including attributes, timestamps, and filesize of the target file, and a lot more. The structure is quite complex and I haven't used it to analyze the contents of my shortcut files. But in the latest version of the documentation file, section 3 gives a structure example that has length x01CA = 458 bytes. So most of my shortcut files are several times larger than their example.
The only information I provide when I create a shortcut is the filespec (path and filename) of the target. Why is there such a large variation in the sizes of the resulting shortcut files? What is in the larger files that is not in the smaller ones? And why are most shortcuts so much larger than the documented example?
I've found two sources online that discuss the shortcut format (1 (link), 2). Both provide examples that are quite small files, and neither says anything about what would cause typical shortcuts to be much larger.
