Enable “Pin to Start Menu” Option for Folders in Windows XP, Vista and 7

Pinning an item to Start menu helps you in accessing that item quickly and easily. By default Windows only allows programs or shortcuts to be pinned to Start menu. You can’t pin a folder to Start menu. Reason? No reason. Weird? 100 %.

In this tutorial, we are sharing a very small and simple registry trick which can enable “Pin to Start Menu” option for folders as well so that you can pin them to Start menu without any problem as shown in following screenshot:

Folder_Pinned_to_Start_menu.png

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Simply follow these simple steps:

1. Type regedit in RUN or Start Menu Search box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\

3. Under this key, create a new key with the name {a2a9545d-a0c2-42b4-9708-a0b2badd77c8}

4. That’s it. Now press “SHIFT” key and right-click on any desired folder and you’ll get “Pin to Start Menu” option.

Pin_Folder_to_Start_menu.png

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5. If you want to remove “Pin to Start Menu” option in future, you can delete the key created in Step 3.

NOTE: If you want to remove the pinned folder from Start menu, you can right-click on the pinned folder in Start menu and select “Remove from this list” option. Alternatively, you can press “SHIFT” key and right-click on the folder in Explorer window and select “Unpin from Start Menu” option.

PS: If you don’t want to do the task manually, download following ZIP file, extract it and you’ll get the required registry script to do the task automatically. You just need to run the .REG file and it’ll add the option:

Download Registry Script

Published in: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. there is a more easy way than dis,
    just drag the folder to the start orb nd it will automatically be pinned to start menu

  2. Excellent post! I’d been looking for ways to do this and most answers referred to a powershell script. Your method was awesome!

    Although… the user above me “VanGuard” has a good point that made me feel silly. Simply dragging the shortcut I wanted to Pin to the “Start Orb” did the trick also.

    Kudos to you both!

  3. Any way to make it work without the shift key.???

    I hate being forced to keyboard modify a mouse click for something I probably will use allot.

    Also any way to get a little arrows next to them and make them expanding?

  4. I have Windows-7. Did not work when tried both the above mentioned ways. Don’t see the “Pin to Start Menu” option and neither dragging the folder or Shortcut to Start menu works at all.

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