Why would you put a parenthesis in your shortcut? Maybe you are talking about quotes?
Basically, to understand using quotes in a shortcut, it is really pretty simple. If the shortcut has spaces in it anywhere ("C:\Program Files\Sony\Everquest\eqgame.exe" space between "Program" and "Files"), it needs to be surrounded by quotes so that it knows that the spaces are included in the shortcut and not some option to run. If there are no spaces in the shortcut (C:\Everqest\eqgame.exe) then you don't need to have quotes around it.
So, when creating your shortcut, here are some examples of what to set:
Code:
"C:\Program Files\Sony\Everquest\eqgame.exe" patchme
Or Something like this:
Code:
C:\Everqest\eqgame.exe patchme