read_link.py

import locale
import struct

def __readLink(path):
    # http://stackoverflow.com/a/28952464/1119602
    with open(path, 'rb') as stream:
        content = stream.read()
        # skip first 20 bytes (HeaderSize and LinkCLSID)
        # read the LinkFlags structure (4 bytes)
        lflags = struct.unpack('I', content[0x14:0x18])[0]
        position = 0x18
        # if the HasLinkTargetIDList bit is set then skip the stored IDList 
        # structure and header
        if (lflags & 0x01) == 1:
            position = struct.unpack('H', content[0x4C:0x4E])[0] + 0x4E
        last_pos = position
        position += 0x04
        # get how long the file information is (LinkInfoSize)
        length = struct.unpack('I', content[last_pos:position])[0]
        # skip 12 bytes (LinkInfoHeaderSize, LinkInfoFlags and VolumeIDOffset)
        position += 0x0C
        # go to the LocalBasePath position
        lbpos = struct.unpack('I', content[position:position+0x04])[0]
        position = last_pos + lbpos
        # read the string at the given position of the determined length
        size = (length + last_pos) - position - 0x02
        content = content[position:position+size].split(b'\x00', 1)
        return content[-1].decode('utf-16' if len(content) > 1
                                  else locale.getdefaultlocale()[1])

better performance for multiple shortcuts, running everything in 1 powershell cmd.
get all links, recursively in a folder

nearly instant instead of wait a few seconds when running on all shortcuts in windows start menu

def get_target_and_args_folder(folder) -> (str, str):
    """
    Get the target & args of all Windows shortcuts (.lnk) in a folder
    :param link_path: The Path or string-path to the shortcut, e.g. "C:\\Users\\Public\\Desktop\\My Shortcut.lnk"
    :return: A tuple of the target and arguments, e.g. ("C:\\Program Files\\My Program.exe", "--my-arg")
    """
    # see https://gist.github.com/Winand/997ed38269e899eb561991a0c663fa49

    ps_command = \
        "$Shortcuts = Get-ChildItem -Recurse \"" + str(folder) + "\" -Include *.lnk;" \
        "$WSShell = New-Object -ComObject Wscript.Shell;" \
        "foreach ($ShortcutPath in $Shortcuts)" \
        "{" \
        "$Shortcut = $WSShell.CreateShortcut($ShortcutPath);" \
        "Write-Host $Shortcut.TargetPath ';' $shortcut.Arguments " \
        "}"
    output = subprocess.run(["powershell.exe", ps_command], capture_output=True)
    raw = output.stdout.decode('utf-8')

    result = []
    for line in raw.splitlines():
        launch_path, args = [x.strip() for x in line.split(';', 1)]
        result.append((launch_path, args))
    return result

@hannesdelbeke yes, it's very basic implementation which does not work with some .lnk files.
So I switched to ShellLink.GetPath COM method. You just create IShellLink() object and call get_path(path_to_link).

see also IShellLink docs

Thanks for the update!
if i'm not mistaken, the python implementation for that uses win32com, which is not in the standard python library.

Thanks for the update! if i'm not mistaken, the python implementation for that uses win32com, which is not in the standard python library.

No no, com_interfaces is a package i've made recently. It uses only ctypes. I've added IShellLink as an example. You can implement other interfaces in a similar way (using Microsoft docs, etc.)