MSFN's Unattended Windows : Pin Items to Start Menu

Pin Items to Start Menu

INTRODUCTION

The start menu in Windows XP allows you to pin various items to it. This procedure will allow you to setup a default pinned item list on the start menu when users first logon to the computer.

PROCEDURE

1. Set the pinned menu items to how you want it to look at first login.

2. Open the registery editor and navigate to the following registery key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage].

3. Right-Click on StartPage and select Export. Name the file anything you wish. We will be editing it.

4. Open the .reg file that you saved in step 3 in your favorite text editor. Since this is a huge file, Notepad will not handle it. I would suggest using something like Wordpad or Notepad++ to edit it.

5. Edit your start menu so that it looks like the code below.

6. Save the .reg file and include it onto your unattended CD/DVD.

NOTES:

If you pin an item that is not installed when you install Windows, then that item will have the default system icon and will not work until the software in question is installed.

These settings are stored in the registry in a binary format. To me, it looks like a shortcut to a shortcut, which is why if you pin a shortcut on the desktop to the start menu, and then later move or delete that shortcut, the pinned item in the start menu no longer works because the shortcut that it was pointing to is no longer available.

FavoritesChanges is a running 32-bit counter that keeps track of how many times that you have changed the pinned itmes on your start menu. When you make a change, Explorer updates Favorites and then increments this counter. I have played with it, and you can crash explorer if you load a reg file and don't increment the counter.

So with that in mind, you must set FavoritesChanges to dword:00000002. You will have problems getting it working otherwise. The initial value is 0. When the Windows Installer adds the Microsoft Icons to it, FavoritesChanges is incremented to 1. By changing it to 2, you override the default behavior and Explorer will load your menu when your users first login. If you set it to 1, then it will not load your start menu pinned items until you logoff and logon or reboot the computer.

ProgramsCache and FavoritesResolve are the huge ones. I'm not sure which one it is, but one of them contains the most used list that determines what programs are populated on the dynamic portion of the start menu. These lists can both be safely set to hex:ff. If you look at the end of the lists, hex:ff marks the end of the list. This sets the list to be empty.

Favorites is the one that we are really concerned with. That value contains the list of pinned menu items. Do not modify that key in any way, shape, or form. I do not know what the format is, but looking at it from the hex/ascii view in regedit, it does contain unicode pathnames to shortcuts and programs, and the names of those programs as they appear on the start menu. Or, if you don't want any pinned items, then you can set that value to hex:ff to blank the pinned items list.

» Example Registry Tweak

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage]
"FavoritesChanges"=dword:00000002
"ProgramsCache"=hex:ff
"FavoritesResolve"=hex:ff
"Favorites"=hex:17,a2,00,00,00,4a,00,31,00,00,00,00,00,4f,32,e9,84,10,00,54,45,\
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Submitted by Maelstorm.
Last updated 2006-04-24 22:10:36 by Maelstorm