You can search for a document and click to open it, but is there a way to put a document you are working with on the Start Menu (Metro UI) for quick selection?
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@Rich Melton: That brings up a good point. While consumption of online feeds seems to be the rage on the MetroUI, I wonder where local documents fits into this picture. Before, I could create libraries of each project I was working on, which weeded me away from the hierarchical filesystem. Now, I'm not so sure where Libraries fit in. . .– surfasbSep 17, 2011 at 16:31
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@surfasb - That's something I was thinking also. Homegroups too? As this is technical preview, and not a feature complete release, I'm curious to see what the Beta shows up with.– Ritch MeltonSep 17, 2011 at 16:37
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@Rich Melton: Yeah, that reminds me. I have to test the homegroups. It would be a shame if Library support dropped to the waist side. . .– surfasbSep 17, 2011 at 16:44
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@surfasb - Yup, I have a corporate customer who I've been persuading to use the feature to help mitigate some IT department issues with backing up data. We'll see.– Ritch MeltonSep 17, 2011 at 16:55
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@surfasb - Homegroups is in the metro control panel. When you search for documents, pictures, etc... you do get a title that looks like it should be able to be pinned, but it doesn't stay. Given the nature of the developer preview's focus on app development and Sinofsky's comments about the amount of missing features (eg: Paragon), I'm speculating that the beta will clear this issue up.– Ritch MeltonSep 18, 2011 at 20:27
8 Answers
Here is an article that explains how to add a shutdown tile to the Metro UI, you could possibly add documents to the same location.
Move this shortcut into C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs (the location of the start menu). Anything in here can be pinned to the Start Screen.
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The Metro UI internally follows the shortcut and confirms it is an application, to prevent non-application tiles. Sep 17, 2011 at 16:44
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Moab, because
shutdown.exe
is, perhaps unsurprisingly, an application, not a document. I'd be a little scared it a document could shut down my computer, too.– JoeyOct 30, 2012 at 19:34
Drop a bath file that starts your document in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
This is a hack that may not work later. There are a lot of complains about Windows 8 adding ALL shortcuts installed by programs to the metro start screen, including uninstall shortcuts. Microsoft may do something about that.
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Yea, that's been tried see the existing answer. While watching the build conference sessions, I've been looking at what is on other's start menus. There's def a feature disparity between this build and what is installed on the Microsoft machines at the conference. Sep 17, 2011 at 15:46
This worked for me. Create a shortcut to the application in quotes followed by the location of the document in quotes. Put the shortcut in the location identified above.
You could use a third-party application such as Pin to 8
In the screenshot below, I've added an SQL dump file as an example.
You can't put anything in the Windows 8 Start Menu, maybe in the future build updates you can once it's been implemented but all you can really do now is just go to the Desktop and pin it to your Taskbar and select it from there.
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I can add applications. Since Applications, Settings, and Files all show up under search, I thought there should be a way. I don't know though. Sep 15, 2011 at 18:09
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This won't be implemented, you can't start documents or files. Sep 17, 2011 at 16:45
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But you can start documents. From the command line, I can type "start C:\Users\dschilling\Documents\my-spreadsheet.xlsx", and Excel opens, displaying the spreadsheet I specified. Sep 10, 2013 at 20:57
You need an application to create secondary tiles for documents and folders.
There are already a lot of other ways to open them:
- Find them on your desktop.
- Find them using
WIN+F
. - Open them from your library.
- Open them through your application.
- Open them through the jump list of your application.
- ...
Also, it's quite a shift from the intended paradigm, that's why Microsoft will not implement this...
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Do you have documentation that states that I must have 'secondary tiles' for documents, I haven't seen it or heard it mentioned? The rest of the post is subjective. Sep 17, 2011 at 17:01
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@RitchMelton: They explicitly discourage it for that reason. Note how their guidelines on tiles are all referring to applications. Nothing I said is subjective, but rather the way things are designed and is the intention of Microsoft if you have followed the various presentations available through the Build application, for your ease of access. Perhaps one could write a Metro application that shows recent files and folders? Sep 17, 2011 at 17:37
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Just press Windows+Q -> Search documents
-> right click -> Pin to start
.