Taskbar icon for all users

Question

is it possible to create taskbar icons (shortcuts, shell links, whatever you want them to be named) in the installer in Windows 7? I know this is not possible with the quick launch toolbar in previous windows version, but maybe something has changed in windows 7?

Answer 1

I'm assuming you want to pin an icon to the taskbar. No, that is not programmatically possible, and with good reason. It is your user's job to decide if your program is cool enough that they want it to be pinned to the taskbar.

If this is a corporate environment, note also that there is no group policy setting to affect a pinned item. If you Google around, there are some dirty hacks to get things pinned to the taskbar, but it involves overwriting all of the user's currently pinned items, which is a very bad idea. (I can see the helpdesk calls: "Where did my icons go??? I can't start the internet!")

Answer 2

Yes, it is possible through a VBScript to pin for 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 by this C# .NET Class:

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

If you are an OEM you can pin to all users during 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