Pin *.lnk file to Windows 7 Taskbar using C#

Question

Even the programmatic pinning of icons in Windows 7 seems it's not permitted (like it says here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd378460(v=VS.85).aspx), there are some methods for doing this by using some VB scripts. Someone found a way of doing this in C# like this:

private static void PinUnpinTaskBar(string filePath, bool pin)
{
     if (!File.Exists(filePath)) throw new FileNotFoundException(filePath);

     // create the shell application object
     dynamic shellApplication = Activator.CreateInstance(Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Shell.Application"));

     string path = Path.GetDirectoryName(filePath);
     string fileName = Path.GetFileName(filePath);

     dynamic directory = shellApplication.NameSpace(path);
     dynamic link = directory.ParseName(fileName);

     dynamic verbs = link.Verbs();
     for (int i = 0; i < verbs.Count(); i++)
        {
            dynamic verb = verbs.Item(i);
            string verbName = verb.Name.Replace(@"&", string.Empty).ToLower();

            if ((pin && verbName.Equals("pin to taskbar")) || (!pin && verbName.Equals("unpin from taskbar")))
            {

                verb.DoIt();
            }
        }

        shellApplication = null;
}

As can be seen, the code makes use of .NET Framework 4.0 features. The question I want to ask is: can this function be transformed so it would make the same thing, but using just 3.5 Framework? Any ideas?

Answer 1

Simple...

    private static void PinUnpinTaskBar(string filePath, bool pin) {
        if (!File.Exists(filePath)) throw new FileNotFoundException(filePath);

        // create the shell application object
        Shell shellApplication = new ShellClass();

        string path = Path.GetDirectoryName(filePath);
        string fileName = Path.GetFileName(filePath);

        Folder directory = shellApplication.NameSpace(path);
        FolderItem link = directory.ParseName(fileName);

        FolderItemVerbs verbs = link.Verbs();
        for (int i = 0; i < verbs.Count; i++) {
            FolderItemVerb verb = verbs.Item(i);
            string verbName = verb.Name.Replace(@"&", string.Empty).ToLower();

            if ((pin && verbName.Equals("pin to taskbar")) || (!pin && verbName.Equals("unpin from taskbar"))) {

                verb.DoIt();
            }
        }

        shellApplication = null;
    }

Be sure to add a COM reference to "Microsoft Shell Controls And Automation".

If you want to keep the existing method of using Activator.CreateInstance so you don't have to have the extra COM interop DLL then you'll have to use reflection. But that would make the code a lot uglier.