Is it possible to set a Windows 7 taskbar button to accept a different application as a child?

Question

Whenever it is possible I prefer to use "portable" versions of applications instead of installing them ordinary way. I put them on drive D: and they store all the data inside their directories and don't rely on system registry/directories. As the result I get the most of applications I use safe in case of the system failure/reinstallation: no need to reinstall and reconfigure the apps, no need to restore data.

But there is a problem when using this approach in Windows 7: many portable applications (at least those of portableapps.com) consist of a launcher .exe file separate from the application .exe itself and these 2 are separate applications from the system point of view. As the result a second icon emerges on the taskbar if I use a pinned launcher button to launch (and if I pin that second button then it just launches the application in non-portable mode).

The same problem applies to any application which uses a separate loader to start to separate start-up-time and run-time code.

So the question is how to teach a Windows 7 taskbar to recognize a sub-launched process as the same application and put it into the same button.

Answer 1

The reason Windows won't let you do this is because the AppID of the launcher is different than the AppID of the executable it launches. A 3rd party program is required, like 7 Taskbar Tweaker. Here is a guide explaining how. Not the easiest solution, but it's the only one I know of that keeps the app in it's portable state. N.B. This isn't guaranteed to work for all applications because there are a few with special AppID's.

Answer 2

Ivan's suggestion will work.

Unpin your current portable Firefox shortcut. Then, rather than dragging the launcher application on to your taskbar, simply launch it. Once Firefox appears on your taskbar, right-click the lone Firefox icon in your taskbar and select "Pin to taskbar." Then, no matter where you launch portable FF from, it will use the existing taskbar icon.

This will likely work for other portable apps, but I'd need specific examples to test it as I did Firefox.

Answer 3

Old question, now, but it still seems to be an issue facing many people, and on later versions of Windows, too. I thought I'd share what works for me ("Pin portables on USB drives to Taskbar, icons grouped").

// For simple apps, navigate to the .exe file on your USB drive (e.g. S:\papps\TedNPad.exe for Ted Notepad, where S:\ is my USB drive and "papps" is what I've named my portable apps folder). Drag the .exe icon to the Start Menu. Open the app from there. Pin the Taskbar icon that then appears.

// For more complicated apps, like Chrome (I'm using portable Version 85.0.4183.102, Official Build, 32-bit), drag the chrome.exe icon from "S:\papps\4\App\Chrome-bin" to the Start Menu, open the app, and pin as above (where "4" is the snappier name I chose for Chrome's app directory, instead of keeping it as "GoogleChromePortableLotsOfDigits" or whatever it was out of the box). Under Chrome's Taskbar icon's Properties' Shortcut tab, make sure that the Target is set as "S:\papps\4\App\Chrome-bin\chrome.exe --profile-directory=Default", and the "Start in" field as "S:\papps\4\App\Chrome-bin".

// (I've then dragged the Chrome icon along the Taskbar to position 4 so that I can open or switch to it conveniently with the keyboard shortcut Win+4.)

// For Firefox, you'll also have to locate the appropriate .exe file. Just dig around in its directories, and try applying the above process to each one by one until you find the one that works. New releases keep moving things around, but there shouldn't be more than two or three.

Answer 4

I have discovered a method that works 100%. Here a illustrated guide

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_XQMJ3MrzxlQlloQW5RTnJ6Ymc/view?usp=sharing

Update

A even better method is as described here http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/985014-guide-pin-programs-with-custom-launchers-to-taskbar/