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I have two versions of SQL installed and I would like the hover text to show the different versions instead of just SQL Server Management Studio and SQL Server Management Studio (2).

I tried to right click on the pinned icon, this gives me a context menu with the program and the ability to unpin. If I right click on the program and select properties I see the properties for the shortcut, but not the pinned icon. I can rename the shortcut in the General tab. This changes the name of the shortcut in the context menu, but it does not change the text on the hover for the pinned item. I also could not find the current hover text in the registry with a basic search.

Does anyone know where to modify the properties of an item pinned to the taskbar for Windows 7?

This question is pretty close to what I am describing and shows another way to modify the shortcut. However, I still do not see the hover text change.

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    Did you first unpin the icon from the taskbar ? After that rename the shortcut to something else and than pin it again. Did it work ?
    – Devid
    Jul 2, 2014 at 19:14
  • @Devid That works, it is a work around but acceptable. Please post as an answer and I will accept. I would still like to know where that information is stored. Jul 2, 2014 at 19:17
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    Just a note that in Windows Vista, the shortcut hovertext (name and Comments property) can simply be edited from the context menu Properties dialog. No Explorer restart required, no delving into obscure AppData folders, etc.
    – kreemoweet
    Jul 2, 2014 at 20:11

2 Answers 2

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First you need to unpin the icon from the taskbar. Now rename the shortcut and after that pin it again to the taskbar. Now when you hover you will see the new text, the one you named your shortcut.

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The shortcuts for pinned items can be found in:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

You should be able to open that folder in Windows Explorer and rename them from there.

The icons pinned to the taskbar are just the shortcuts that are found in this folder. You can just modify the exisitng shortcuts, without deleting anything to update them. Windows does, however, cache the data from those shortcuts, so you may need to kill explorer and restart it in order to see the updates immediately.

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  • That answer is on the linked question. It only modifies the shortcut and not the pinned item. Jul 2, 2014 at 19:14
  • @JabberwockyDecompiler, see my update.
    – heavyd
    Jul 2, 2014 at 19:26
  • That is useful information, I will give that a try at the end of the day. I am assuming you mean kill the explorer.exe process and not just any open windows explorers (I did not have any open). Jul 2, 2014 at 19:28
  • Correct, you'll need to kill the process, which will actually cause the taskbar to be reloaded.
    – heavyd
    Jul 2, 2014 at 19:29
  • I decided to go ahead and try it, this does work, I am going to leave Devid's answer as the accepted answer because it is a less invasive process. I think that the normal user should avoid killing explorer.exe. Jul 2, 2014 at 19:33

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