Workaround to Pin My Computer, Documents, Recycle Bin or Any Folders to Windows 7 TaskBar (Pin to Windows Explorer Alternative)
In Windows 7, user cannot pin a Computer, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Videos, Games, Recycle Bin or any folder and drive root to Windows Taskbar directly, with the exception of Control Panel. If user attempts to drag and drop the shortcut to a folder to Task Bar, it can’t be dropped into Taskbar with forbidden icon, or been shown option to “Pin to Windows Explorer” instead. Furthermore, when right click on a folder, there is no right click menu item of “Pin to Taskbar” too.
Pin to Windows Explorer may work for some users, who don’t mind have to right click on Windows Explorer icon in Taskbar, and then select the pinned folder or item on top of the Jump List. For Windows 7 users who want the convenient to instantly open a folder such as My Documents by one-click on Task Bar, use the following trick, which similar to change default opening folder of Windows Explorer, to add the favorite folders to Windows 7 TaskBar.
- Right click on Desktop, and select New -> Shortcut.
- Visit list of available Explorer.exe special object switches to determine the shortcut value that should be entered. For example, if you want to pin Computer (or My Computer), then enter the following string as the location of the item:
%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /E,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
Click on Next when done.
- Enter a new for the shortcut. For example, Computer.
Click on Finish when done.
- A new shortcut will be placed on desktop. Optionally, right click on the shortcut, select Properties. Then click on Change Icon on Shortcut tab to change the icon of the shortcut (which will be used when pinned to Task Bar too).
Tip: Most of the default folder related icons are stored inside %windir%\System32\shell32.dll system file.
- Now, right click on shortcut on desktop, and click on the Pin to Taskbar on right click menu to pin the folder to Windows 7 Taskbar.
Voila, now a folder can be pinned and directly access from Windows 7 Taskbar. To unpin any of these folders, just right click on its button on Taskbar, and select “Unpin this program from taskbar”.
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- Display and Show Classic Navigation Tree Pane in Windows 7 Explorer (for Users Folder, Control Panel, Recycle Bin and CD/DVD/BD Drives)
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- Hide and Remove Public Folders Shortcuts and Favorite Links in Vista Explorer Shell
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November 16th, 2009 13:47
[...] This may help: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/0…r-alternative/ [...]
October 31st, 2009 02:43
[...] Workaround to Pin My Computer, Documents, Recycle Bin or Any Folders to Windows 7 TaskBar (Pin to Wi… [...]
August 21st, 2009 08:38
This is a great article and I was able to pin my Control Panel and Recycle Bin here no problem. My issue was with trying to pin my ‘Downloads’ folder, I was unable to determine the correct syntax for doing so. The path should be C:\Users\Kunal\Downloads, but it looks like the Windows Explorer syntax you have uses %windir% to start in the Windows directory by default. I need something that will let me start in the Users directory instead. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Kunal