How can I pin a program to the Windows 7 Taskbar, with parameters?

For the simplest method, you can create a shortcut anywhere and pin it to the Taskbar. If you want to edit a existing shortcut/pin, there are two methods:

• Open %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar (copy-paste this in Run command box). This contains all your pinned shortcuts. You can edit the target properties of the shortcuts.
• Right-click on the shortcut/pin, then right-click on the application (first selection on bottom), choose Properties and edit the target.

These both work the same way.

There is no programmatic way manage pinned items on the start menu or the taskbar. The problem with allowing you to modify pinned items is that you might try to do it; and that is wrong.

The problem is that people, who are not the user, might decide to add items to:

• the desktop
• the start menu fast items list
• the quick launch menu
• the favorites menu
• the start menu pinned list
• the taskbar pinned list

Suddenly these areas become a dumping ground for every bit of junk that someone thought was too cool.

Those areas are for users. Not installers. Not IT.

That is why there's no way for anyone, except the user, to pin items to the start menu or the taskbar. If they let you: you might try to do it. Microosoft learned their lesson.

Applications still try to stuff their garbage on the desktop, and the user's Quick Launch - even when there no longer is a quick launch. Even Git, the current darling, does it:

Developers cannot be trusted to do what's right.

To quote Raymond Chen:

Why is there no programmatic access to the Start menu pin list?

We learned our lesson the hard way.

In Windows 95, we gave programmatic access to the Start menu "Fast items" list - the items that appear at the top of the Start menu above the Programs list. This area was meant for the user to customize with their favorite links, but programs quickly saw the opportunity and spammed themselves into it every chance they got.

In IE, we gave programmatic access to the Favorites menu, and once again, programs spammed themselves into it.

In Windows XP we intentionally did not give programmatic access to the bold list of items at the top of the Start menu (the "pin list"). The pin list is for users to put their favorite icons. It is not the place for a program to decide unilaterally, "I am so cool. I am your favorite icon. I just know it. So I'll put myself there because, well, I'm so cool."

Because we knew that the moment we let people mess with the pin list, everybody would install themselves into it and it would become meaningless (and annoying).

Next Microsoft needs to figure out how to stop programs from adding shortcuts to themselves to the desktop.

Bonus Chatter

Looking up my old Quick Launch folder in Windows 7:

C:\Users\ian\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

Shows Foxit Reader thought it simply had to add itself there. Along with

• µTorrent
• Google Chrome

If you are the author of one of those programs, you are an idiot. Stop putting your icons in the quick launch. Stop putting your icons on the desktop. Stop putting your icon on the All Users desktop. And i see that nowadays Chrome has found a way to bypass the Windows rules, and pins itself to my taskbar on initial install. Programs belong in the start menu, and nowhere else.

The Quick Launch folder still exists, but now it's simply a decoy for ill-mannered applications to dump their garbage into.

The Desktop folder should go the same way.

You can create a shortcut(such as a simbolic link with "mklink" command) to your command with the specified parameters and then pin it(the shortcut) to the Windows 7 Taskbar.