I use Wmware too, and i found the following code snippet to be better for getting rid of those annyoing and useless shortcuts DEL /Q /F "%AllUsersProfile%\Desktop\*.lnk" > NUL DEL /Q /F "%HomePath%\Desktop\*.lnk" > NUL These variables point to the complete path to the relevant directories. I've never personally had any problems with WMWare. What version are you using?