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])

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.)