Pin any file to Windows 10 Start Screen (Registry Tweak)

Windows 10 lets you Pin folders, apps and shortcuts to executable files to the Start screen using the “Pin to Start” context menu. Using a registry tweak discussed in this post, you can pin any file (of any type) to the Start screen in Windows 10.

Registry Tweak to allow Pinning any file to the Start screen

Start Regedit.exe and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFileSystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

Create a subkey named {470C0EBD-5D73-4d58-9CED-E91E22E23282}

Selecting the key {470C0EBD-5D73-4d58-9CED-E91E22E23282}, double-click the (default) value in the right-pane, and type “Pin to Start”. This step is optional, though.

pin any file to start

Exit the Registry Editor.

pin any file to start

Now, to pin a file, first create a shortcut to that file, right-click on the shortcut and click Pin to Start.



pin any file to start

The data file (in this case, .txt file type) gets pinned to the Start screen. The same method works for any other file type. And, the desktop shortcut can now be deleted. For website shortcut (.URL) files, you can pin them straight away from the right-click menu, as they’re shortcuts already.

REG file

To automate the above registry edit, copy the following lines to Notepad and save the file with .REG extension.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFileSystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{470C0EBD-5D73-4d58-9CED-E91E22E23282}]
@="Pin to Start"

If you don’t have administrator rights in your system, you can apply the tweak for your user account only using the following REG file/contents.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\AllFileSystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{470C0EBD-5D73-4d58-9CED-E91E22E23282}]
@="Pin to Start"

Double-click the REG file to apply the contents to the registry.


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

4 thoughts on “Pin any file to Windows 10 Start Screen (Registry Tweak)”

  1. Would like to ask a question and pose a scenerio.

    Recently upgraded to W10 v1607, Build 14393.222.

    After this upgrade, bot Firefox, IE and Chrome no longer correctly display my router home page nor any menus that may be available. The browsers will log into the admin home page but that is as far as you can go. Opera works just fine as does Safari and Edge.

    Have been researching and struggling with this one and could really use some insight.

    any help would be high appreciated.

    Thanks in advance.

    Reply
  2. I’ve been through HUNDREDS of tutorials on how to pin a .BAT file to start. THIS IS THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKS!
    -just create the shortcut in the same folder as the actual .BAT file and name it what you’d like.

    Thank you Sir!

    Reply

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