Where is the list of pinned start menu and taskbar items stored in Windows 7

Question

What is the location of pinned start menu and taskbar items?

Is this list a registry, or a folder somewhere?

Answer 1

You can find pinned apps in:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

and for the start menu apps go to:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\StartMenu

Answer 2

You can find the programs that you have pinned to the start menu at:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned

and the taskbar shortcuts are at:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

Just copying shortcuts into these locations does not work. You can, however, add shortcuts via a VBScript:

Const CSIDL_COMMON_PROGRAMS = &H17 
Const CSIDL_PROGRAMS = &H2 
Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application") 
Set objAllUsersProgramsFolder = objShell.NameSpace(CSIDL_COMMON_PROGRAMS) 
strAllUsersProgramsPath = objAllUsersProgramsFolder.Self.Path 
Set objFolder = objShell.Namespace(strAllUsersProgramsPath & "\Accessories") 
Set objFolderItem = objFolder.ParseName("Calculator.lnk")
Set colVerbs = objFolderItem.Verbs 
For Each objVerb in colVerbs 
    If Replace(objVerb.name, "&", "") = "Pin to Start Menu" Then objVerb.DoIt
Next

Answer 3

The list that includes all pinned files and folders as well as programs is in the Registry under this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage2

The relevant values are Favorites, FavoritesChanges, and ProgramsCacheSMP. Unfortunately, they're all binary and therefore really hard to modify directly. Each pinned entry appears multiple times even within one data blob, and it's not clear which ones need to be modified for the changes to take effect. I can confirm that changing all instances of, say, Thing1 to Thing2, then killing and restarting Explorer did result in the pinned entry being changed to Thing2.

Answer 4

To add a degree of precision to the replies which identified the…

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\StartMenu

…folder as the location where user pinned Start Menu items are stored, note that only actual programs—executables—that are pinned to the Start Menu will appear in that folder. Neither folders nor data files, both of which can also be pinned to the Start Menu, will appear in that folder. I mention it both for future readers who come upon this page via search engine result and because the original question mentioned Start Menu items, not just programs in particular. So if a user has, for example…

• 2 folders • 3 programs • 2 documents • 1 music file

…only the second item—the 3 programs—will show at the location above.

Don't know where the other stuff that appears there, like the folders, documents, and music file above, gets recorded, but the Registry is likely a safe bet.

Answer 5

Depends on the type of application. Majority can be found in the answers already shared. But they are also contained at the following path.

%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

e.g.

C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Answer 6

Since Windows Fall Creators Update 1703 this is handled a bit differently. There's a cache of the Start Menu layout stored in the Windows Registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CloudStore. It's a bit obfuscated, but if you wanted to back up and restore the layout at a later point (or even on a new windows installation), it's enough to export and then re-import it back in the registry. Of course you need to have all the files back in C:\Users\hkr\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu as well, or the icons will not appear on the Start Menu.

Answer 7

%LocalAppData%\TileDataLayer\Database

Might be what you're looking for. There's a couple files in there, if you transfer that entire folder to a different PC you get your pinned tiles back. (But, they are not in "shortcut" format - they're an ESE database.)

Credits go to TPreston

Answer 8

Actually, the answers where incomplete for me. I am experiencing an issue that all the folders pinned under "Windows Explorer" were disappearing (probably something corrupted on my machine that I still have to troubleshoot) and therefore wanted to take a backup of the pinned items; I found that:

C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

contains all programs that I have pinned to the taskbar (as in the selected answer), while:

C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

Contains all "files" or "locations" that I have pinned in each application (ref to: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/57678501-e32d-4ee1-8ca1-a99d798e3e93/where-are-pinned-jumplist-items-located?forum=w7itproui)

Answer 9

Wanted to add to other answers. The paths are:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\StartMenu

In my case, I wanted to pin certain programs there directly point to the EXE files due to some corrupt installers preventing icons from showing up from advertised shortcuts. For this, you have to pin the program as usual (right click on the button and "Pin ..."), then create a shortcut pointing to the exe file in some other folder (doesn't matter where), then overwrite the pinned shortcut with your manually created shortcut - voila the icons are back!