<http://msdn2.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/aa969393.aspx>

   Different OSes implement shortcuts in different ways. In the case of
Windows XP, a shortcut file is a plain old regular file which you can open
up and read, but they are binary (as opposed to plain text), so you'll
have to figure out the file format to decypher.

   - Oliver

The easiest way on Windows is to call a VBS and capture the output.

In this`example, I open the Firefox shortcut on the desktop and read the
target Path.

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

public class VBSUtils {
private VBSUtils() {  }

public static String readShortcut() {
 String result = "";
 try {
  File file = File.createTempFile("realhowto",".vbs");
  file.deleteOnExit();
  FileWriter fw = new java.io.FileWriter(file);

  String vbs = "set wshshell = WScript.CreateObject(\"WScript.Shell\") \n"
             + "desktop = wshshell.SpecialFolders(\"AllUsersDesktop\") \n"
             + "set shortcut = wshshell.CreateShortcut"
             + "(desktop & \"\\Mozilla Firefox.lnk\") \n"
             + "WScript.Echo shortcut.TargetPath \n"
             + "Set wshshell = Nothing \n";

  fw.write(vbs);
  fw.close();
  Process p =
    Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cscript //NoLogo " + file.getPath());
  BufferedReader input =
   new BufferedReader
    (new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
  String line;
  while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
   result += line;
  }
  input.close();
 }
 catch(Exception e){
  e.printStackTrace();
 }
 return result.trim();
}

public static void main(String[] args){
 msgBox("Shortcut for Firefox is " + readShortcut());
}
public static void msgBox(String msg) {
 javax.swing.JOptionPane.showConfirmDialog((java.awt.Component)
  null, msg, "VBSUtils", javax.swing.JOptionPane.DEFAULT_OPTION);
}
}

Bye.