Reverse Engineering a .LNK or .PIF file

I need to be able to extract the information from a .lnk or .pif file.
There is a un-supported sample program on the VB 6.0 CD that will do this (Shelllnk.vbp) but it uses a .TLB file to do its dirty work. This file is described as VB 5 - IShelllink Interface and I am reluctant to depend on it since I have no way of knowing if and when it will break.

My project needs to CREATE Shortcuts, of which I have found many samples on how to do this, and EXTRACT the information from the created shortcuts as well as shortcuts created by other methods, such as Drag/ Drop using Right click in Explorer.

Is there a "official" way of extracting the information from a shortcut?

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

John G