Pinning an application shortcut to the Windows (7,8) taskbar

Question

I would like to write a program that Pins an APPLICATION like Microsoft WORD, EXCEL, and POWERPOINT to the taskbar on windows 7 or 8. I found the directory that hosts the shortcuts (%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar); however, when I create a shortcut and move it to that folder, the icon does not appear in the taskbar. Also, removing a file from that folder does not remove the icon from the taskbar, it just disassociates the icon from any shortcut. The next time you click on the icon it will display a message asking if you want to remove the pinned item. I would like to automate these processes as I use them a lot on multiple computers per day.

Answer 1

Found my answer elsewhere. VBScript is the way to go! http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/185512/Programmatically-PIN-shortcut-onto-Taskbar-on-Win7

Answer 2

Old question but I was looking for a way to do this too, this way seem much simpler than using VB.

Create a new shortcut and set the target to: cmd.exe /c "path\to\script.bat". Then you can just right-click and pin it like other shortcuts.

Got the solution from here: http://www.mysysadmintips.com/windows/clients/343-pin-bat-files-to-windows-8-start-screen