How can I add shortcuts to the Windows 7 start menu?

Anonymous

For some reason, it is impossible to add any new shortcuts to the start menu in Windows 7. I always get a message 'Windows can't create a shortcut here. Do you want the shortcut to be placed on the desktop instead?' I tried to select 'Show hidden files, folders, and drives' in the Folders and search options > View and to get to the start menu from ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu but this does not help.

How do you manually add a shortcut to the start menu?

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Anonymous

Right click on the file and select Send to Desktop (create shortcut) and then drag the shortcut on the desktop to the Start menu.

You should not create shortcuts or change any files in the Programs area unless you are troubleshooting.

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Anonymous

Sorry ... I don't accept that the "Pin to start menu" option is a substitute for being able to manually add a shortcut to the start menu. Being able to pin something is useful, but it doesn't cover many of the use cases for manually adding something. First, when you pin something, it will always appear in the same place. So there's no way to "pin" something into your Accessories\System Tools folder. Second, there is no way to "pin" something into the All Users start menu. If you have 5 people who need to access a program (like a family where 1 is typically the admin) then you have to login as each and pin it separately. Or am I supposed to just tell my 7-yr-old daughter to go hunt down the EXE for the app I installed and pin it herself?

I completely appreciate why Microsoft wants to keep average users from messing with their start menu. But there should be a way to disable this protection on a per-user basis or at least relegate it to a warning that you can only override as an admin user. It's kind of silly to have the only solution as "copy it to your desktop then copy it to the folder where you want it". That makes just as much sense as having to copy/paste everything through Notepad when you want formatting stripped off.

Organizing the folders and files in the Start/All Programs section is not a mystery and is fully supported.

There are 2 locations where the All Programs folders are kept.

Click Start, right click All Programs and select either Open or Open All Users.

Open is where all of the folders and files are kept that appear only in the logged on users all programs folders.

Open all users is where the programs that appear in every users all programs folders are located.

Usually, the only programs that are in an individual users folder is if that user is an administrator and they installed a program and selected to not make that program available to other users on the computer.

Once you go to that location in Windows Explorer for these folders and files, you can organize them any way you wish, just as you would any other folders.

Hope this helps.

Thank You for using Windows 7

Ronnie Vernon MVP

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89 additional answers

Anonymous

2014-08-12T14:53:21+00:00

Macs ARE PCs, but OK.

IBM and Microsoft might disagree. The term "PC" came from a trademark for the IBM PC upon which all of the PC-DOS and MS-DOS computers were based. Over time it has come to represent the class of personal computers based on the IBM PC and clones thereof, but not the Mac. The Mac is a personal computer but it is not a Personal Computer or PC.

Apple would also disagree, based on their years-long advertising campaign comparing a Mac to a PC. Actually, it is ignorant people who do not understand the real difference between a Mac and a PC or Personal Computer as compared to a Mac and a personal computer.
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Anonymous

2014-08-12T14:32:51+00:00

This thread is sort of funny when you consider folks are complaining about how badly the start menu got screwed up in Windows 7. At the time this thread was started and most active they had no clue about how bad it would get in Windows 8. I just have to laugh. If they only knew.

But the thread is still pertinent because many of us are still using Windows 7. I came to this thread hoping to find out how I could manually add my own programs to the User Pinned lists.

My scenario was that I have applications stored on a network share so they're available from any PC I use on the network. These don't require "installation" in the sense that they're not registering DLLs or making registry changes; they're complete as they are stored on the network. I created shortcuts to the applications and copied those shortcuts to the User Pinned lists at C:\Users\dale\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\StartMenu.

Try as I might, these shortcuts never show up in the start menu. I tried rebooting to no avail. I searched the registry for the shortcut name or network path name and found nothing in the registry. I'm not sure how this feature works but it is seriously locked down and seriously takes away from the good functionality that used to exist in the start menu. There appeared to be just no way to add programs manually to the list....

But I finally figured out a work around. I copied all the app folders to the Program Files folder and then I could pin the executable to the start menu and they showed up in the list. Next, I went to each of the shortcuts in the start menu and opened the properties pages. I edited the target and the "open in" locations to point to my network share and then deleted all the copied folders from Program Files. Now my custom program shortcuts show up in the User Pinned list as desired.

I tried this workaround for non-executable files and couldn't make it work but if you're trying to add programs to the Start Menu pinned list, this will help.
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Anonymous

2014-06-04T18:24:06+00:00

On Wed, 4 Jun 2014 14:32:24 +0000, DanSmiv wrote:

It is easy to add a shortcut to a program yes. But that wasn't the question. The question was about adding a shortcut to a file. Which was possible in XP, but isn;t in Windows 7 for some mysterious reason.

It is possible in Windows 7. Please clarify what you are saying. How
are you trying to do it, and what happens when you try? If you get an
error message, please quote it verbatim.
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