How to pin either a Shortcut or a Batch file to the new Windows 7 Taskbar?

Question

We are having trouble adding our batch scripts to the new Windows 7 taskar.

Our batchfiles take some arguments and just execute other application based on those arguments . To keep it simple, we created some shortcuts for our customers which they just need to click in order to get everything running.

The question here is: How can we pin those shortcuts or batch files to the taskbar?

(The customers aren't supposed to access the file system and that's why they can only see the taskbar)

Answer 1

Just becouse this question was shown in my top search hits I'll post solution that I've just researched:

1. Create shortcut to your batch file
2. Get into shortcut property and change target to something like that: cmd.exe /C "path-to-your-batch"
3. Simply drag your new shortcut into a taskbar, it should be now pinnable

Answer 2

Yes this is an annoying "feature" of the windows 7 taskbar. I built a simple application that runs batch files which you can pin to your taskbar and pin batch files to it. It gets the job done. Download it for free -> http://johnastevens.com/helpTopics.aspx#batchapp

Answer 3

The folder for the Windows 7 taskbar is located at:

C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

You can create a shortcut there and upon logging off and back on, it should appear.

Hope this helps.... There are other things I should caution you about, for example, they can right click and edit the batch file - so, you may want to look at NTFS permissions for locking down the file.

Answer 4

This thread nearly answers my problem, another thread worth reading that solves these issues in a different way is here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/a44e74a1-20cd-4924-8f2b-3e6b688f1ad7/

the best other way is this: I was able to add a batchfile to the taskbar by the following steps 1. Renaming your .cmd/.bat to to .exe 2 right click on the *.exe and choose pin to taskbar 3. rename it back to .cmd/.bat 4. shift+right click the taskbar icon (for the exe) and choose properties 5. Change the reference from *.exe to .cmd/.bat and change icon as needed 6. It starts working right away but the icon refresh needs a reboot..

I have an additional question though how do you get a pinned taskbar batch file accepting another file as a parameter, it works when pinned onto the startbar, or just in the folder, but I can't get it working like it did on XP.

This is the functionality I'm talking about: "Drag and drop a file on the bat icon. The bat will receive the file name of the dropped file as %1 and vbscript will receive it as WScript.Arguments(0)."