Taskbar icon for all users

Question

Can I create icons on the taskbar (shortcuts, shell links, anything you want to be named) in the installer in Windows 7? I know this is not possible using the Quick Launch bar in a previous version of Windows, but maybe something has changed in Windows 7?

Answer 1

I assume that you want to attach the icon to the taskbar. No , that is not a programmatic way, and not without reason . Your user’s task is to decide whether your program is sufficient enough to be tied to the taskbar.

If this is a corporate environment, also note the lack of Group Policy settings to affect the pinned item. If you have Google, there are some dirty hacks to force things to pin on the taskbar, but this involves rewriting all the users that are currently pinned, which is very bad. (I see support calls: "Where do my badges go? I can't start the Internet!")

Answer 2

Yes, possibly through VBScript to display the current user

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/185512/Programmatically-PIN-shortcut-onto-Taskbar-on-Win7.aspx

This script can also be created at runtime using this C # .NET class:

http://blog.ananthonline.net/?p=37

If you are an OEM, you can connect to all users in the DASH process with the following command

Reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TBDEn /v SBOEM0 /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "SomeFile.lnk" /f 

Answer 3

Icons with Windows 7 taskbar icons are stored in the following places:

File System: %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

Registry: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband]

To expand a pinned item, you can follow these steps:

• Configure items docked in Windows 7 as a reference computer.
• Export the registry key to the pinned.reg file:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband]

And copy the items in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar to the shared folder.

3. Create a logon script to deploy the registry keys and copy the corresponding files.

Please note that the %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned is created only after the user has attached the icon to the taskbar. In the logon script, you will need to create the %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar if it does not exist.

PLEASE ALSO A NOTE THIS REPLACES ALL THE ICONS NOW! So, this is suitable for me, because it is used only on our DR terminals, where users should not try to personalize anything and are going to switch from terminal to terminal on demand.

Finally: there is another way to do this using this VBS script, which allows you to add attached items to the current user collection:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/deploymentguys/archive/2009/04/08/pin-items-to-the-start-menu-or-windows-7-taskbar-via-script.aspx

I did not like this method, since it includes a script login.

Answer 4

There is no api for connecting the application to the taskbar, because Microsoft does not want you to do this.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd378460(v=VS.85).aspx#unified