>>>Are either of the test users, local administrators on the Win7 Pro workstation? If not, maybe any shortcut that is to be used by more than one user needs to be created under the All Users profile.
>>
>>One of the test users was a local administrator on the workstation. Since all of this was over the phone, I couldn't tell you if the shortcut was in the All Users profile -- though the fact that the shortcuts were appearing in the desktop for both users (without need to copy from one user to another), I presume that the shortcuts exist in the All Users profile. User confirmed that the shortcuts appeared to be identically configured.
>
>Hmm, my understanding is if UserA (admin or not) creates a desktop shortcut, it's saved in their profile (\Users\UserA\Desktop). Even if both users are admins, I believe there are privilege restrictions on each other's profiles.
>
>Regardless, if what you're trying to achieve is to create a shortcut that may be used by any user on the workstation, I think the proper place for such a shortcut is in the All Users profile. An admin user can cut a shortcut from their desktop and paste it into the All Users desktop, which should achieve that.

I did ask regarding how they created the shortcut, but never got a detailed answer aside from "we didn't do anything different on this workstation."

BTW, the first user we'd tried (and ws getting the behavior as if user didn't have access rights) had been registered as a local administrator on the workstation -- one of the things that really puzzled me. Is there a policy that changes how application is run depending on the owner of the shortcut?