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pin a document to start menu
techidave:
gdv, I will try your suggestion out tomorrow. I am not in that building today.
worstje:
I happened to see this topic and could not _not_ make a post on this. :)
This method is technically the same as in the Technet article posted above, but I like to think my way is a bit more userfriendly and less confusing to work with. And by 'this method', I am referring to my NANY 2011: Cautomaton application.
How to get started with it... open a cmd.exe box so you have a commandline to work with, and go find the Cautomaton executable. Make sure to use the proper one for your architecture, although in the specific case of pinning to the start menu, it won't make a difference.
Run this: cautomaton.exe /a /p myfile.jpg
This will tell Cautomaton to popup (/p) the popup menu belonging to myfile.jpg and to analyze (/a) after making your selection. So let's do that: choose the "pin to start menu" option, and you'll get something like this:
C:\Projects\dev\cautomaton\build\x64\Release>Cautomaton.exe /a /p myfile.jpg
Verb related information:
Verb (Unicode): startpin
Help text (Unicode): Adds this item to the Start Menu
Trail information:
Caption: Pin to Start Men&u
ID: #80
Position: 7
Neg. Position: -14
Recommended Cautomaton parameters: /v startpin
C:\Projects\dev\cautomaton\build\x64\Release>
--- End quote ---
Do note that if you look in your start menu now, myfile.jpg has been pinned there.
Cautomaton has analyzed everything you did, and offers you example parameters to use to repeat this action programmatically. (It offers a bit more information than that even, but in 99% of the cases, the recommended parameters are going to work just fine.)
Now, before we continue, let's repeat the exact same action, yet this time unpin our image.
C:\Projects\dev\cautomaton\build\x64\Release>Cautomaton.exe /a /p myfile.jpg
Verb related information:
Verb (Unicode): startunpin
Help text (Unicode): Removes this item from the Start Menu
Trail information:
Caption: Unpin from Start Men&u
ID: #81
Position: 7
Neg. Position: -14
Recommended Cautomaton parameters: /v startunpin
C:\Projects\dev\cautomaton\build\x64\Release>
--- End quote ---
So, at this point we know we can add (pin) something to the startmenu using /v startpin, and remove (unpin) it again later using /v startunpin Let's try it:
C:\Projects\dev\cautomaton\build\x64\Release>Cautomaton.exe /v startpin myfile.jpg
C:\Projects\dev\cautomaton\build\x64\Release>
--- End quote ---
What is that? Nothing? That's right. If the action is successful, you'll see nothing and nothing at all. Were you to check the exit code of the process, you'd find it to be 0, which means it was successful. And just to give another example... Repeat the exact same command however with the file already pinned, and...
C:\Projects\dev\cautomaton\build\x64\Release>Cautomaton.exe /v startpin myfile.jpg
Error: invocation of the action failed. Bad verb?
C:\Projects\dev\cautomaton\build\x64\Release>
--- End quote ---
There's a nice error message. If error messages aren't upto your liking, you can use /q to tell Cautomaton to be silent.
Note that I am running Windows 7, and that one has this functionality in the popup menu. I am not sure to what extent other Windows versions have such an option, so test for yourself. Also, something I did notice while testing is that folders lack the pin/unpin options.
gdv22:
gdv, I will try your suggestion out tomorrow. I am not in that building today.
-techidave (November 15, 2010, 05:04 AM)
--- End quote ---
Yeah, after thinking about it so much, I'm eager to hear if it works for you! :)
The programmatic approaches in Stoic Joker's TechNet Link (Pin Items via Script) and worstje's Cautomaton post (immediately above) are fascinating to me conceptually, but over my head technically. I hope to study them in more detail as soon as I get a chance, but for now I'm still thinking about a non-programmatic approach.
I've also had a couple of workaround ideas that, it seems to me, have some advantages over pinning to the Start Menu, and might even be preferable. I thought about posting them here, but maybe will wait until you try the above pinning method, so as not to cloud the issue.
techidave:
Maybe I missed it, but did you try what Stoic Joker suggested (and I summarized above in item 4 of my list)?
If not, I still think it will work. But I think I've figured an even simpler way, where you won't have to edit the shortcut itself (i.e., Path/Target or "Start in" folder). It's simpler to do than it is to explain, but here goes (in more detail than I'm sure you need, but I'm hoping it will be clear enough for any less experienced future readers):
* 1. create two shortcuts on your desktop [RightClick > Send To > Desktop (create shorcut)], one shortcut to your My(Redirected)DocsXLS file in the redirected MyDocs folder and another shortcut to AnyOtherDocument from anywhere on your local machine (can probably be a shortcut to any kind of file, but I'm going to stay with documents just in case Windows does something invisible based on the filetype when pinning shortcuts that I don't know about)
* 2. rename the Shortcut to AnyOtherDocument (not the file it points to) whatever you eventually want your XLS pinned Start Menu shortcut to be named (e.g., MyPinnedXLSLink)
* 3. unless you want to permanently keep the MyPinnedXLSLink shortcut on your desktop, move it and the Shortcut to My(Redirected)DocsXLS to wherever you want to keep the MyPinnedXLSLink shortcut on your local machine
* 4. pin the MyPinnedXLSLink shortcut to your Start Menu with the Ctrl+Shift+RightClick context menu (or Ctrl+Shift Drag&Drop... ...your choice)
* 5. click on the Pinned MyPinnedXLSLink link on the Start Menu (it should still open AnyOtherDocument... ...just checking to make sure it's working properly ;))
* 6. ...(now here's the sleight of hand)... ...rename the MyPinnedXLSLink shortcut on your Desktop or in its permanent location (i.e., NOT the Pinned MyPinnedXLSLink link on the Start Menu) AnythingYouWant
* 7. and finally, rename the Shortcut to MyDocsXLS on your Desktop or in its permanent location as MyPinnedXLSLink
* 8. click on the Pinned MyPinnedXLSLink link on the Start Menu, and (cross your fingers ;)) it should open your My(Redirected)DocsXLS file in the redirected MyDocs folder :)
* 9. if it all works the way you want, you can delete the renamed AnythingYouWant shortcut
This is essentially the same method outlined earlier, but instead of "modifying" the shortcut to point to a different Path/Target, I'm just renaming one working pinned shortcut so I can then rename another shortcut that points to the desired Target in the redirected MyDocs folder with the original pinned shortcut name. (And maybe I could have just said that and not been so detailed above, but sometimes I can't figure out how to summarize until I've already written it out in detail... ...oh, well!)
Unfortunately, I can't try this on my own network right now because my other machine is down... ...but I've tried it with shortcuts I modified to use the UNC (\\ComputerName\SharedFolder\Resource) network path to files in shared folders on my own working machine (\\WorkingMachine\SharedFolder\TestXLSfile.xls instead of G:\SharedFolder\TestXLSfile.xls) and it worked. So I think I've tricked my own machine to open a file from a pinned shortcut to what looks (to the machine) like a remote network file (analogous to your situation), even though the files are actually on my local machine. (I hope that's clear enough... ...can't figure out a clearer way to say it right now.)
So I'm smiling now, thinking it will work for you... ...but I hope I'll still be smiling when I see your reply ;D
The problem with copying that file to the local machine is when I sync my laptop with the network at school, that file won't get copied over automatically.
--- End quote ---
Sure, that would be one of the advantages of a redirected MyDocs folder. Another might be that if the IT department has a strong backup system in place, all users' MyDocs are regularly being backed up and retrievable if a local machine goes down. [EDIT: Oops, I just realized Stoic Joker already said that above: "The point being that everybody's documents are stored in a central location so they can be backed up in a reliable and expedient fashion."]
Let us know if the above works. :)
-gdv22 (November 14, 2010, 02:40 AM)
--- End quote ---
isn't this a lot of work to have to go through? unless I am missing something here... :-[
Stoic Joker:
Some of the steps do appear to be extras, but the gist is correct. Pin local file to start menu, then edit the target (and start in) info of the pinned shortcut.
Just noticed, in 7 the shortcuts appear to be stored here:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\StartMenu
...Not sure if/how that helps, but I thought I'd share it.
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