Change Pinned Taskbar Icon (Windows 7)

Change pinned taskbar icon (windows 7)

EDIT The info below is a bit obsolete; all new Windows 7 bits are now available as a managed API, available here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack

There is a series of articles on the new Taskbar API by the debugging guru Sasha Goldshtein. You should have a look at the Overlay Icons and Progress Bars API.

You can download the sample code from Windows 7 Taskbar Developer Resources on Microsoft Code. What you're looking for is the IMClient sample:

The IMClient sample demonstrates how
taskbar overlay icons and taskbar
progress bars can light up an
application’s taskbar button instead
of relying on an additional dialog or
on an icon in the system notification
area (tray).

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I believe this should help you achieve what you want.

Taskbar icon for all users

I'm assuming you want to pin an icon to the taskbar. No, that is not programmatically possible, and with good reason. It is your user's job to decide if your program is cool enough that they want it to be pinned to the taskbar.

If this is a corporate environment, note also that there is no group policy setting to affect a pinned item. If you Google around, there are some dirty hacks to get things pinned to the taskbar, but it involves overwriting all of the user's currently pinned items, which is a very bad idea. (I can see the helpdesk calls: "Where did my icons go??? I can't start the internet!")

Windows 7 pinned taskbar icon changes to default file icon when application is upgraded

Decided to reboot after each update.

Pinning an application shortcut to the Windows (7,8) taskbar

Found my answer elsewhere. VBScript is the way to go!
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/185512/Programmatically-PIN-shortcut-onto-Taskbar-on-Win7

How do you change the the icon of a non-pinned program?

OK, since nothing I did worked I tried reinstalling Firefox 10. I let it create its own icons on the desktop and start menu, then I changed the icon from the taskbar (right-click program icon on taskbar, right-click on program name in pop-up menu, select properties, change icon) on its first run. Now it's not pinned but I have a custom icon for it just like the others! The answer seems to be to let the program create its own shortcuts rather than adding a link manually, then edit the existing shortcuts.

Change icon of group in taskbar (Win7)

The group icon comes from the EXE file itself (in the case of multiple EXEs contributing to the same group, I imagine the taskbar has some algorithm to decide which EXE to pull the icon from). There is no official API to change the group icon. You would have to manipulate the Taskbar directly, which is not impossible but not trivial either.

Update: I just came across the following answer, maybe it will help you:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/219128/65863

Update: Apparently the Registry value in the above link only applies if the app is pinned to the Taskbar.

Pinning a specific folder to the taskbar in Windows 7

Just drag the link to your Documents folder to the task bar. It will show up as a link to start the Windows Explorer but you will see the Documents folder listed as one of the pinned folders in the jump list.

If you wish to force the link to open to the folder directly, you can modify the shortcut to open the folder of your choice. Just right click on the link, right click on the Windows Explorer shortcut and go to properties. Then add the path to your folder in the target. You could use %USERPROFILE%\Documents in this case.

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