>>Is this an finite number of exe's and directories or is it variable?
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>Background info: In the orignal app, the client numbers are hardcoded while building the project and executable. This was stored in DirectoryA.
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>There is a situation now, where a clinet may have more than one client number. So I generate another executable and store it in DirectoryB.
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>Both DirectoryA and DirectoryB and even C,D,E... could reside on one computer or many computers.
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>The Data directory is just one directory, which all of the above should access.
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>Issue now is to place desktop shortcuts for each executbale, so the user may acces which ever clinet number he/she wshes to work with. All this without using any installers.
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>Basically, I give the 2 directories e.g. DataDirectory which contains the data files and DirectoryA which contains executableA, DirectoryB which contains executableB so on and so forth.

This seems like a design issue that would be better handled by making the client number a variable (rather than hard coded) that can either be passed to the exe or stored in a table or configuration file and presented as a choice when starting the application. This way you could have one exe that accesses the common data directory that knows its client number based on the parameters passed from the shortcut (if you are using shortcuts that pass in parameters), or based on the choice that the user selected on starting the application. This without the additional overhead and redundant copies of the application on the user's computer and without the additional maintenance of multiple projects with the only difference being the customer number. If there are other differences, can they be handled through configuration rather than duplicating code in multiple places?


But in any event, if you need to create desktop icons, the function that I provided should work for you.