History
With early Graphical User Interfaces to execute an application or render a file, the user had to click on the representation of the actual file or executable in the location where the application or file was.
The concept of disassociating the executable from the icon representing an instruction to perform a task associated with that file or executable so that they may be grouped by function or task rather than physical organisation in the file structure was first described in the research paper "A Task Oriented Front End For The Windows Graphical User Interface", published in 1991 by Kingston University and presented to both Microsoft and Xerox EuroPARC that same year under an academia/business technology sharing agreement.
A simplified form of this research was incorporated into System 7 in 1991, and four years later into Windows 95.
Read more about this topic: File Shortcut
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