New to W7, questions about taskbar & shortcuts

[dazco]

First let me say, man, i love this OS! i was really hesitant since XP worked what i at least THOUGHT was well. But W7 is so much quicker and seamless. Anyways, 1st question is on XP i would drag a shortcut to the taskbar and it would then be usable and work as the original shortcut did. With 7 it doesn't wok. For example, i have a txt file that i keep on another drive and i put a shortcut to it on my taskbar. In XP i'd click it and the file would pop up as you'd expect. On 7 if i drag that txt file to the taskbar, when i click the resulting shortcut instead of the file i just get a new empty notepad. If i right click it (i THINK it was by R/clicking) then a list of various notepad files i've viewed pops up and i can choose it from there. But i just want it to be a shortcut to the particular txt file. Is there a way? second, i see shortcuts don't have the file's pathway or "address" if you will in them. I miss that for a number of reasons such as being able to tell where the file it's pointing to is, or adding switches in the target line etc etc. Is there a way to make them show the pathway? Thanks, and no doubt you'll be hearing more from me !

 

[pricetech]

Try this, it should work;

Paste the shortcut to the text file in:

c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

substituting your username.

There probably is an easier way, but that should work.

 

[whs]

You can try this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9305-taskbar-pin-unpin-folder.html

But if you have a lot of folders or shortcuts, it gets kind of crowded. In that case a toolbar may be the better option: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/72092-toolbars-how-use-windows-7-vista.html

 

[dazco]

It didn't work putting the txt file in that folder, and the other idea....well, it's saying a "folder", not a file.

 

[whs]

It didn't work putting the txt file in that folder, and the other idea....well, it's saying a "folder", not a file.

Into a toolbar you can put anything of which you can make a shortcut (on the desktop).

 

[Trucidation]

Into a toolbar you can put anything of which you can make a shortcut (on the desktop) - except .gif files.

I haven't tried it, but... why .gifs? Not images in general?

 

[dazco]

I don't understand why it didn't show when i put it in the folder. maybe a restart?

 

[whs]

I haven't tried it, but... why .gifs? Not images in general?

Correction: .gif does work. I had put it into the wrong toolbar folder. LOL

I don't understand why it didn't show when i put it in the folder. maybe a restart?

What did not show. What is "it".

 

[dazco]

What did not show. What is "it".

What pricetech suggested. I tried that, no go. There IS a email shortcut on the taskbar, but i didn't put it there. However, it is there in the folder he mentioned so i figured any shortcut i put in that folder should show on the taskbar like he said, but it didn't. I even tried restarting and it doesn't show there.

The other tutorial seems to suggest it puts a folder on the bar that contains the file you want, and i don't want that. I want the files directly on it. Otherwise for my purposes it's senseless.

 

[pricetech]

Let me do some more looking. I tried just now creating a shortcut to notepad specifying a text file on the root of C but it didn't show up either.

I'll double check my notes and see what I can come up with.

Us old guys got to keep notes.

 

[pricetech]

I got it !!!

Open notepad, click on it's icon in the taskbar and pin it.

Go to the folder I lead you to earlier and right click on the shortcut that is now there and add your text file to the end of the command.

....notepad.exe file_to_open.txt

 

[dazco]

Ahhh, a command line switch. I'll give it a try when i get home tonite and let you know if it works 4 me, thanks. But i need a bit more clarity first, as i'm not completely sure what you're saying. If i put a file in that folder it does NOT show up on the sakbar. So are you saying drag a shortcut onto the bar then it will show in the folder so i can then add the switch? And if so, how does it know where to find the actual txt file....are you saying put that also in that folder along with the shortcut?

 

[pricetech]

I'm going to walk through it so I don't miss a step;

Run notepad. While it's open, there will be an icon for it in the taskbar. I right click on that icon and choose "Pin this program to taskbar" Then I close notepad, leaving the pinned shortcut. I then navigate to:

c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar\

where I find a shortcut for notepad. I right click on that shortcut and select Properties.

In the Target field, where it shows the command line for notepad, I just add a space and the path and filename I want to open. In my example I want to open "file.txt" which is on the root of my C drive, so I'll add that to the end of the command line so it looks like this:

%windir%\system32\notepad.exe c:\file.txt

You can also change the Start In field to reflect where your text file is.

Now when I click on the pinned icon in the taskbar, notepad opens with my text file displayed.

I hope I wasn't too detailed, I just didn't want miss anything.

 

[dazco]

perfect sir, got it now. Thank you kindly.

 

[dazco]

Worked like a charm ! Thanks again...

 

[pricetech]

You're welcome. Please mark your thread solved so others can benefit from it.

 

[dazco]

You're welcome. Please mark your thread solved so others can benefit from it.

How do I do that?