>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>thanks. we managed to get that to work, but we would also like the installation to automatically put the shortcut on the desktop too.
>any hints.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You can use Windows Script Host and run something like this in a post-install program:

oWsh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
cDesktopDir = oWsh.SpecialFolders("Desktop")
oLnk = oWsh.CreateShortcut(cDesktopDir + "\\Shortcut to Notepad.lnk")
oLnk.TargetPath = cDesktopDir + "\\notepad.lnk"
oLnk.Save()

HTH