How to Pin a Folder Shortcut to the Start Menu

How to Pin a Folder Shortcut to the Start Menu

Adding a Folder Shortcut to the Start Menu using Active Directory GPO

The shortcut of a file or folder can be added to the Start menu to be accessed easily by users. Shortcuts of folders that are used frequently can be pinned so that they can be accessed without searching or navigating the entire path every time. This can also be done for shared folders and other entities within an Organizational Unit in Active Directory.

An administrator can pin the shortcut of the desired folder to all users within an OU without configuring it on individual computers. This can be accomplished with the help of Group Policy Objects. When the group policy is deleted, the shortcut is also deleted, making it easily manageable. For instance, the Employee Handbook folder can be pinned to the Start menu of all users within the HR organizational unit for easy access. The following two methods can be used to perform this process.
  1. Using Group Policy Objects to pin a folder shortcut to the Start menu
  2. Using PowerShell Scripts to pin a folder shortcut to the Start menu

How to Pin a Folder Shortcut to Start Menu using Group Policy Objects

The URL or shortcut of a specific folder can be pinned to the Start menu using Active Directory Group Policy Objects. This can be done by following the instructions given below.
  1. Open the Group Policy Management Console. This can be done by typing gpmc.msc in the command line.
  2. In the Group Policy Management Console, expand the console tree. Locate the Organizational Unit (OU) for which the group policy needs to be applied.
  3. Right-click on the desired Organizational Unit and click on the Create a GPO in this domain, and Link it here option.
  4. In the New GPO dialog box, enter the name of the group policy in the required field and click OK.
  5. Right-click on the newly created group policy and click on the Edit option.
  6. In the Group Policy Management Editor window, expand User Configuration.
  7. Navigate to the User Configurations > Preferences > Windows Settings > Shortcuts node and click on it.
  8. Select New > Shortcut.
  9. In the General tab of the New Shortcut Properties dialog box, enter the appropriate details in the required fields such as Name, Target Type, Location and Target Path.
  10. In the Common tab, select the Remove this item when it is no longer applied option and click OK when prompted. This ensures that the shortcut is removed from the Start menu when the group policy is deleted or if the user falls out of the Organizational Unit (OU) structure to which this policy is applied.
  11. Enter a short description of the policy in the Description field and click on Apply and then OK.
  12. Update the Group Policy Object by running the following command.
  13. gpupdate /force
  14. In step 9, Name is the display name for the shortcut, Target Type is File System Object, Location is Start menu and the Target Path is the path to the folder that needs to be pinned.
  15. If the shortcut can be addressed using a Windows path such as file, folder, share, drive or computer, select File System Object. If it can be addressed using a URL such as a webpage, website or an FTP site, select URL. If it can be addressed as an object within the Windows Shell such as a printer, desktop or control panel item, file, folder, share, computer or network resource, select Shell Object.
  16. The shortcut of the required file or folder is available to all users under the selected Organizational Unit. This can be accessed by logging into any of the computers within the selected OU.

How to Pin a Folder Shortcut to Start Menu Using PowerShell Commands

The required file or folder can also be pinned to Start using PowerShell scripts. The following script can be used to pin a folder URL to the Start menu.

  1. $shell = New-Object –ComObject “Shell.Application”
  2. $folder = $shell.Namespace(“C:\Path\To\Folder”)
  3. $item = $folder.Parsename(“Shortcut.lnk”)
  4. $verb = $item.Verbs() | Where-Object {$_.Name –eq ‘pin to Start Men&u’}
  5. if ($verb) {
  6.      $verb.DoIt()
  7. }
Thus the PowerShell script given above can be used to pin the shortcut of a folder to the Start menu for easy access by the users. 

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