Mindtrip, just a couple things that may help:
(1) I used GS Finder Plus to create the LNK shortcuts for use with tdL. It's a freeware alternative to MS WM File Explorer, with lots of nice features. Using GSF+, you browse to the EXE of the app you're linking a Today Screen shortcut icon to, tap and hold, and then select "Shortcut" from the pop up menu. Then I chose to remove the "Shortcut to" from the LNK's file name. Next, tap and hold on the LNK, and this time select "open with" from the pop up, so you can use Notepad to edit the link according to Wong's instructions. If you don't have GSFinder+, here's where I learned about it:
http://tinyurl.com/62eshh
(2) Wong's character count is possibly not what you're thinking. It's only the count of characters in the text of the LNK, not of the icon whose
path is in the link, but the characters in the link plus path, minus comma, dash, etc. per Wong's discovery.