All Ways To Pin Apps And Folders To Start In Windows 10

For faster access, Windows 10 allows pinning folders, drives, apps, contacts (People app), Libraries, OneDrive, network locations, and certain pages of Settings to the Start menu. Pinned locations can be opened quickly with a couple of clicks. For Store apps, the Start menu displays Live Tiles (if supported by the pinned app), so you can see useful updates at a glance.

Out of the box, Windows 10 allows pinning only executable (*.exe) files to the Start menu. If you are not happy with this limitation, you can bypass it as described in the article:

How to pin any file to Start Menu in Windows 10

After following the instructions in the article mentioned above, you will be able to pin any file to the Start menu, including text files, Word documents, etc.

Windows 10 supports a number of methods you can use to pin various objects to the Start menu. Let's review them.

Pin to Start using File Explorer

This method is applicable to executable files (or other file types if you apply a tweak mentioned above).

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Navigate to the target file.
3. Right-click it and select Pin to Start from the context menu.

Tip: This command is also available for folders, drives, shortcuts and other file system objects.

Pin to Start directly from the Start menu

1. In the Start menu, right-click on the desired item in the left area. It can be a folder, a Store app, or a classic Desktop app shortcut like Notepad.
2. Select "Pin to Start" in the context menu.
3. Alternatively, you can drag-and-drop the desired item to the right pane.

Pin Settings to the Start Menu

In Windows 10, you can pin individual pages of the Settings app to the Start menu. This will allow you to access your frequently used settings/pages of Settings faster. In this article, we will see how it can be done.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Open any Settings page you want to pin, for example, suppose it is the "System -> Display" page.
2. On the left, right-click the "Display" item. The "Pin to Start" context menu will appear:
3. Click on the Pin to Start command and confirm the operation.
   
   The Display page will appear pinned to the Start menu. See the following screenshot.

Refer to the following article for more details: How To Pin Settings to the Start Menu in Windows 10

Pin a Website to the Start Menu

Besides file system objects and Store apps, you can pin a web site to the Start menu. For some reason, Microsoft has locked down the ability to pin a website to the Start Menu by right clicking a URL file from your Favorites folder. But a number of third party browsers and the default browser, Microsoft Edge, have the appropriate function to pin your favorite web pages as Start menu tiles.

I've already covered this in detail in the following article:

How to Pin a Website to the Start Menu in Windows 10

Pin a Control Panel applet to the Start Menu

If you are using the classic Control Panel frequently, you can pin some of its applets to the Start menu.

1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Select Large icons to change its view.
3. Right-click the desired applet and select "Pin to Start".

Alternatively, you can create a shortcut using commands which open Control Panel applets directly and then pin that shortcut to the Start menu by right clicking it.

Refer to this command list:

Open Control Panel Applets Directly in Windows 10

Pin Regedit.exe to the Start menu

This trivial procedure is made more difficult in Windows 10 and you may find that you cannot easily pin it in the latest version of the OS. In previous Windows versions like Windows 7, there was no issue with pinning Regedit to the Start menu. You could just type Regedit.exe in the search box of the Start menu, right-click the search result and select Pin to Start menu from the context menu. But not so in Windows 10. There is no "Pin to Start" option in the context menu.

Instead, you should go to the C:\Windows folder, right-click on the regedit.exe file and then use the Pin to Start command.

See the following artice:

How To Pin Regedit To Start Menu in Windows 10

Unpin from Start in Windows 10

Every item pinned to the Start menu can be quickly removed from there by using the pinned Tile's context menu. Open the Start menu, right-click on a pinned item and select Unpin from Start in the context menu.

That's it!