wix - Advertised shortcuts vs. non-advertised shortcuts in windows setup project

Question

I cannot understand what is exact consequences of using attribute Advertise in Shortcut attribute. What is the diffirence?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11776023/advertised-shortcuts-vs-non-advertised-shortcuts-in-windows-setup-project

Answer 1

Advertised shortcuts are used by advertised features:

• when a feature is installed as advertised, it is only registered with Windows Installer; it's content is not actually copied on the machine
• when launching an advertised shortcut which targets something in this advertised feature, the feature content is finally copied on the machine

So advertised features and shortcuts are a form of "advertising". Your package shows the user that it has a feature available and installs it only when the user want to use it. If the shortcut is never used, the feature is never fully installed.