In earlier posts, we have discussed how you can pin any drive on the taskbar, pin any folder in Windows 7 start menu. We will now discuss how to pin any folder or even the control panel on Windows 7 taskbar.
Normally, we can not pin a folder directly on the taskbar. This is only possible for applications.
Here is a tip to pin directly to a personal folder to the taskbar.
In this example, the My Documents folder will be pinned to the Taskbar.
1. Right-click on the desktop, click New, then click Shortcut :
2. Enter the location of the item
explore shell: My Documents
3. Click next and rename the shortcut to “My Documents” in the next window and click finish.
4. The new My Documents shortcut is created on the desktop:
5. To customize its icon, right click, select Properties, then Change Icon . The icons in the folder C: > Windows > explorer.exe will be displayed. Browse to C: > Windows > System32 > imageres.dll to get more icons:
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Select the one that matches with My Documents folder icon. Click OK and Again Apply and and OK in the properties Window.
6. Right click on the shortcut icon you have created and select pin to taskbar. It will appear in the taskbar:
7. Now delete the shortcut on desktop. We do not need it more.
One can of course adapt the procedure for individual files.
Only the location of the item that changes, then customize the name and icon of the shortcut.
Music -> explorer shell: My Music
Images -> explorer shell: My Pictures
Videos -> explorer shell: My Video
Downloads -> explorer shell: Downloads
Games -> explorer shell: Games
Favorites -> explorer shell: Favorites
For public folders:
Documents -> explorer shell: Common Documents
Music -> explorer shell: CommonMusic
Images -> explorer shell: CommonPictures
Videos -> explorer shell: CommonVideo
Downloads -> explorer shell: CommonDownloads
For the system folders:
Personal folder UserName -> explorer shell: Profile
Computer -> explorer shell: MyComputerFolder
Network -> explorer shell: NetworkPlacesFolder
Control Panel-> explorer shell: ControlPanelFolder
For a personal folder created and stored in user’s profile UserName :
My own example file created and saved to C: > Users > Abhishek > Custom name
C: > Windows explorer.exe “C: > Users > Abhishek > Custom”
Replace ” > ” with backslash in above examples.
Here is the example of Control Panel which has been pinned to Windows 7 Taskbar:
