Windows 8 practically takes many pages out of Windows 7′s book. In fact, minus the missing Start menu, the Windows 8 desktop looks like a carbon copy of the Windows 7 one. There’s one difference, and it pops up right in front of your nose every time you start the computer (unless you read this guide on how to bypass that): the Metro interface. Metro’s a whole other ballpark that people have yet to fully understand, but it’s there, and everyone’s constantly trying to find a way to cope with it that doesn’t involve a complete change of lifestyle. Pinning things to the taskbar gets a bit more complicated this way, because the first question on someone’s head is: How do you pin Metro apps to the taskbar? We’ll guide you through that, and other pinning activities, in this tutorial!


1: The Basics: Pinning A Shortcut To The Taskbar

The procedure for pinning a shortcut to the taskbar in Windows 8 is identical to the one in Windows 7. All you have to do is right-click the shortcut and click “Pin to Taskbar,” like so:




That’s all you have to do. Moving on!

2: Pin The Recycle Bin To The Taskbar

It’s literally impossible to pin the Recycle Bin to Windows 8′s taskbar. There’s always a workaround, though. Read this guide and skip over to section six. This will effectively put a shortcut to the Recycle Bin on your taskbar like as if it would be pinned. Enjoy!

3: Pin A Metro App To The Taskbar

Other tutorials teach you how to pin desktop apps found in Metro to the taskbar, but you probably want to know how to pin the apps that are exclusive to Metro. To do so, we will need the help of the app MetroApp Link.
  • Click this link to get to the MetroApp Link download page.
  • Click the large “Zum Download” button found next to the image of the program.
  • Select “Download-Server CHIP Online.” It will now tell you to wait 3 seconds. The download will automatically begin then. If it doesn’t, just click “Zum Download,” which appears after it counts down from 3 seconds.

This application has been tested for malware. It’s safe. Let’s move on.

When you first open the application, it will prompt you on the installation of an icon library. Click “Yes.” If you don’t, all your apps will have the same icon, which is kind of boring. You’ll get to an interface that looks like this:




When you click “Create shortcut” next to an app’s icon, its shortcut will appear on your desktop. Once you have a shortcut, you can right-click on it and click “Pin to Taskbar” just like you saw in the first section of this article!

4: Pin A Website From Internet Explorer To The Taskbar

The process for this is fairly simple: Just drag the website’s tab or its icon from the address bar to your taskbar and it’s pinned. Viola!

5: Pinning A Folder To The Taskbar

This one’s annoying. If you ever tried pinning a folder, it always adds the folder to the context menu of the Windows Explorer icon in Windows 8′s taskbar. You may not like this, so there’s a way around it:
  • Create a shortcut to the folder you want to pin. For the sake of simplicity, put it in the desktop.
  • Right-click on the shortcut you created and click “Properties.”
  • Under “Target,” you’ll see the folder’s path surrounded by quotation marks. Just before the path, type “explorer” and separate the path and what you typed with a space. Here’s an example:

explorer"C:\blablabla\New Folder."
Click “OK” when you finish.
  • Drag the completed shortcut to your taskbar.

And you’re done!


That’s all we have today! If you have more to add to this, please leave a comment. We’d love to hear your ideas.

Source : The Ultimate Windows 8 Taskbar-Pinning Guide