Windows 7 - Taskbar - Pin or Unpin Program Links

Question

As in title, is there any Win32 API to do that?

Answer 1

Just to put some links on the info as microsoft now offer an official documentation on "Taskbar Extensions" :

A small set of applications are pinned by default for new installations. Other than these, only the user can pin further applications; programmatic pinning by an application is not permitted.

So Kevin Montrose answer is the correct one : DON'T.

Answer 2

this folder contains shortcut of pinned application

C:\Users\Your-User-Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

Answer 3

In the comments of a Code Project article it says all you have to do is create a symbolic link in the folder "C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar".

But it appears to generally be unsociable practice, as the other comments here have noted.

Answer 4

I found there is no offical API to do that, but someone has do it through VBScript. http://blog.ananthonline.net/?p=37 Thanks.

Answer 5

I'm trying to implement a VirtuaWin (opensource virtual desktop software) plugin that allows me to pin different buttons to different virtual desktops. Completely valid reason to use this.

Found the way to pin/unpin it already:

Following code snippet is taken from Chromium shortcut.cc file, nearly unchanged, see also the ShellExecute function at the MSDN

bool TaskbarPinShortcutLink(const wchar_t* shortcut) {
  int result = reinterpret_cast<int>(ShellExecute(NULL, L"taskbarpin", shortcut,
      NULL, NULL, 0));
  return result > 32;
}

bool TaskbarUnpinShortcutLink(const wchar_t* shortcut) {
  int result = reinterpret_cast<int>(ShellExecute(NULL, L"taskbarunpin",
      shortcut, NULL, NULL, 0));
  return result > 32;
}    
// Copyright (c) 2012 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved.
// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
// found in the LICENSE file.

Seems pretty straightforward if you know the shortcut. For me though this is not sufficient, I also need to iterate over existing buttons and unpin and repin them on different desktops.

Answer 6

You can pin/unpin apps via Windows Shell verbs:
http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2009/04/08/pin-items-to-the-start-menu-or-windows-7-taskbar-via-script.aspx

For API, there is a script-friendly COM library for working with the Shell:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776890%28VS.85%29.aspx

Here is an example written in JScript:

// Warning: untested and probably needs correction
var appFolder = "FOLDER CONTAINING THE APP/SHORTCUT";
var appToPin = "FILENAME OF APP/SHORTCUT";
var shell = new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application");
var folder = shell.NameSpace(appFolder);
var folderItem = folder.ParseName(appToPin);
var itemVerbs = folderItem.Verbs;
for(var i = 0; i < itemVerbs.Count; i++)
{
    // You have to find the verb by name,
    //  so if you want to support multiple cultures,
    //  you have to match against the verb text for each culture.
    if(itemVerbs[i].name.Replace(/&/, "") == "Pin to Start Menu")
    {
        itemVerbs[i].DoIt();
    }
}