Windows 7 - Start Menu - Pin or Unpin a Folder, Drive, and Library

Hi,

I pinned a custom library (named Downloads) to the Start Menu without downloading the registry entries found in this thread. The problem was, I was unable to unpin the item from the Start Menu. Whenever I right clicked on it, I would get two options, open or properties. I tried deleting the library. Not only did the Start Menu entry not go away, but now when I right clicked and selected properties, I was informed the item did not exist. Still no option to unpin though, even for a non-existent item. So I went googling. With the enable registry keys provided here the issue was corrected. So this is more of an FYI, if this is released without those registry keys, then the custom libraries will need to be prevented from being pinned to the Start Menu.

Thank you Darius, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Interesting, I'm curious as to how you managed to pin the folder to the Start Menu without these registry entries though?

Thanks. Well as to that, I didn't know about these registry entries, so I went looking for a solution myself. I'm a tinkerer at heart, so I tried a number of ways to get it to pin in place. The method that worked was to create a custom library, use the context menu to create a desktop shortcut, then pin the shortcut to the start menu. Then I deleted the shortcut and everything worked as intended. At least for 2 days until I decided I did not really want a downloads link on my start menu after all. What I really wanted was the ability to add it to the list of libraries on the right side of the menu. Haven't quite figured that one out yet

After a little more poking around, this works without the custom library. To pin any library to your start menu, you can simply create a desktop shortcut, then drag that to the start menu to pin it. You just can't unpin it.

Using this tutorial, you should be able to just right click on any library in the Libray folder and click on Pin to Start Menu to do so instead, and Unpin from Start Menu to remove it.

Hi!

We can just drag folder from anywhere to start menu and pin...

Hello Bob, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Yes, thank you that is true, but this will add the Pin to Start Menu option to the folder or library context menu so that you can also have it as an option to use to pin a folder or library to the Start Menu as well. Either way is good though.

Hello,
How did you find out what GUID needed to be edited (in the .reg file)?

Hello Whattf, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Going through the GUIDs in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID keys, most of them will have a description that will help ID what the GUID is for. From there it's just a matter of looking for that GUID in the usual context menu registry locations.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Brink: your Enable_Start_Menu_Pin_Folder enables documents or shortcuts (as well as folders) to be (Shift-rtClick) to main Start Menu. However, this will not work if shortcut points to file on another network machine (Vista & XP of course allowed this by simply dropping shortcuts into the StartMenu folder - but not on Windows 7; it must be pinned). Is the problem some arcane security setting (maybe this post holds the key Help Classic Menu - Shortcuts attributes - BIG mistake )?