Hades68

It works beautifully, you Sir are a Norse god amongst men! Thanks so much!

Yes, exactly. I keep all of my game shortcuts for Steam and non-Steam games in the same folder, so there are a mixture of .lnk and .url files in there. For example: E:\Games\Baldur's Gate 3.url E:\Games\Diablo III.lnk Does this make sense now?

That works nicely! But could I make one request? I also have "Internet Shortcuts" for Steam games stored in the same location as my game shortcuts. Could you have it scan for those as well? Then it would be perfect!

Unfortunately I have tried that and it returns no results.

Currently, Launchbox doesn't recognise Windows shortcuts as ROMs it can remove when the Tools > Scan > For Removed Windows ROMS... option is used, so games have to be manually deleted from Launchbox when uninstalled. However, I have noticed that when I click on a Windows game in Launchbox which has been uninstalled, instead of the Play option it shows Unavailable. Is there a way to create a playlist to only list Windows games with the Unavailable status? I've been trying to make one but no luck so far.

Resurrecting this threat for a quick question - when I remove a Windows shortcut for a game from the folder where I have them stored, and then click on the same Windows game in Launchbox, instead of the Play option it says Unavailable. Is there a way I could create a Playlist to only show games which are marked as Unavailable? I've tried a few different ways but I can't get it to work. This would help with removing those games from Launchbox until the scan for removed Windows ROMs fix is implemented.

That's great! Thanks for this, AstroBob!

Thanks for all of your help, AstroBob! One more thing on this Windows games topic; when I delete Windows shortcuts from the folder then do Tools > Scan > For Removed Windows ROMS... Launchbox doesn't detect that the shortcuts have been removed and ask me to delete the games.

Thanks for your rapid response! I rely on shortcuts because when I install Windows games I don't have them create an entry in the Start menu. I also have some indie games which don't appear in the Start menu, and I don't have a Steam API key which is needed to use the Steam import option. My workflow is as follows: When I initially import my Windows games into Launchbox, I use the Wizard from Tools > Import > ROM files > Single Platform, then add my shortcuts folder, at What platform are you importing games for? I select Windows from the list, at What emulator would you like to use? I leave that field blank, at Would you like to move or copy the files? I select Use the files in their current location, at Would you like to download metadata for your games? I leave that ticked, on the next three screens I select the metadata I want and set any custom options, then Launchbox lists the shortcuts it found in the folders and I click Finish. After this, if I add any new shortcuts to the folder, that is when I use the Scan for Added ROMs option. Wouldn't it be possible to flag the games as Windows instead of ROMs when Windows is selected as the platform and the emulator field is left blank in the import wizard, and not set the use emulator flag?

I can confirm that this is not fixed in the latest version 13.19, since I don't drop the .exe file into Launchbox, instead I keep shortcuts for all of my games in a single folder (including Steam url shortcuts) and then I choose Tools > Scan > For Added Windows ROMS... which then detects any shortcuts I've added to the folder. Unfortunately when I do this the Use emulator to play this game option is still ticked under Launching > Emulator An additional issue I have found is that when I delete any of the shortcuts from the folder, then do Tools > Scan > For Removed Windows ROMS... Launchbox does not detect that the shortcuts have gone so it claims no Windows games have been removed, which means I have to remove them from Launchbox manually.

Bump! Does anyone have a solution?

I have all of my Windows games shortcuts in a single folder, I imported the shortcuts into Launchbox, which works just fine. When I uninstall a game I have to delete the shortcut manually from the folder. However when I delete the shortcuts and ask Launchbox to check for removed Windows games, it says there are none removed.

I had the same issue and posted about it a few days ago:

I found the solution! For some reason when I re-imported the Windows games, the "Use an emulator to play this game (primarily for console games)" option was ticked on the Emulation tab of the Edit Metadata/Media... window. I have no idea why this was ticked by default for Windows games. However, it can't be unticked in the bulk metadata change option, so I had to edit the \LaunchBox\Data\Platforms\Windows.xml file and do a find and replace on "<Emulator>00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000</Emulator>" replacing it with "<Emulator />". Now my Windows games all launch again!

I had hundreds of Windows games imported into Launchbox as shortcuts which were working just fine. I had to remove them all and re-add them, but now when I try to launch them it keeps asking me to configure an emulator for them, even though I imported them as Windows games. Any ideas?