Thanks for the replies. I did some more research, and I did find the solution as above. So, you can create a standard desktop shortcut with the following targets:

On Win9x (and I'm assuming ME as well, but I don't see any info for it specifically):

rundll32 c:\windows\system\rnaui.dll,RnaDial "Connection Name"

On Windows NT/2000/XP:

rasphone -d "Connection Name"


A bit nicer than mucking around with the registry, but I'll certainly keep that in mind for future reference.

I'm still convinced there's an un- (or poorly) documented way to do this programmatically, at least on XP, as the last option in XP's "Create New Connection" wizard for dial-up connections is a checkbox labelled "Create a Shortcut on the Desktop for this connection".

A further question about the WshShortCut udf - I take it this depends on certain methods from the Windows Scripting Host. However, I know that on Win9x the WSH isn't always installed (or is removed for security reasons). Is there an alternate way to do this or does the udf anticipate that (I've only taken a cursory glance at the code)?