The Problem

I have seen many people talk about a requirement to efficiently and easily pin and unpin items from the Start Menu and Taskbar for users on Windows 7 operating systems.  I have developed a script in VBScript that goes a long way to making this task as easy as possible.

Many scripts will target either the unpin or pin operation, and usually only target one location (either the Start Menu or Taskbar) without requiring modification of the script to target the other.

The script I have developed allows the user to modify only one section of the code, in which they detail the operation, the target, and the shortcut to be created, all at once, so multiple operations can be performed with one run of the script.

The Solution

The code went through a few iterations, but I ended up with this version, which is a very flexible version for system administrators.  The full code is shown below.

' Specify the file paths of the file to pin or unpin
 ' The second element on each line of the array can be either "Both", "Start Menu", or
 ' "Taskbar" to specify the target of each operation.
 ' If strMode = "unpin", you can use "unpin_all" in the third element of the array to unpin
 ' all items from the Taskbar or Start Menu.
 ' SYNTAX IS , ,  WITH THREE ELEMENTS PER ACTION
 arrActions = Array( _
 "unpin", "Both", "unpin_all", _
 "pin", "Start Menu", "C:\Windows\Notepad.exe", _
 "pin", "Taskbar", "C:\Windows\Calc.exe" _
 )

For intAction = 0 To (UBound(arrActions) - 2) Step 3

arrFileNames = Array(arrActions(intAction + 2))

'strMode can be "Pin" or "Unpin"
 strMode = arrActions(intAction)

'strLocation can be "Start Menu" or "Taskbar" or "Both"
 strLocation = arrActions(intAction + 1)

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
 Set objShellApp = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
 Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
 If LCase(strLocation) = "both" Then
 arrLocations = Array("Start Menu", "Taskbar")
 Else
 arrLocations = Array(strLocation)
 End If

For Each strLocation In arrLocations
 If LCase(strMode) <> "pin" And LCase(strMode) <> "unpin" Then
 WScript.Echo "Mode is incorrect. Please set to ""pin"" or ""unpin""."
 WScript.Quit
 ElseIf LCase(strLocation) <> "start menu" And LCase(strLocation) <> "taskbar" Then
 WScript.Echo "Location is incorrect. Please set to ""Start Menu"" or ""Taskbar""."
 WScript.Quit
 Else
 strMode = LCase(strMode)
 If strMode = "pin" Then
 strVerb = LCase(strMode & " to " & strLocation)
 strMessage = " has been " & strMode & "ned to the " & strLocation & "."
 ElseIf strMode = "unpin" Then
 strVerb = LCase(strMode & " from " & strLocation)
 strMessage = " has been " & strMode & "ned from the " & strLocation & "."
 End If

For Each strFilePath In arrFileNames
 If LCase(strFilePath) = "unpin_all" And strMode = "unpin" Then
 strPinLocation = objShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%APPDATA%") & _
 "\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\" & _
 Replace(strLocation, " ", "") & "\"
 For Each objFile In objFSO.GetFolder(strPinLocation).Files
 strFullPath = objFile.Path
 'Set objFile = objFSO.GetFile(objFile.Path)
 Set objFolder = objShellApp.Namespace(objFile.ParentFolder & "\")
 Set objFolderItem = objFolder.ParseName(objFile.Name)
 Set colVerbs = objFolderItem.Verbs
 For Each objVerb In colVerbs
 If LCase(Replace(objVerb.name, "&", "")) = strVerb Then
 objVerb.DoIt
 WScript.Echo strFullPath & strMessage
 End If
 Next
 Next
 Else
 If objFSO.FileExists(strFilePath) = True Then
 Set objFile = objFSO.GetFile(strFilePath)
 Set objFolder = objShellApp.Namespace(objFile.ParentFolder & "\")
 Set objFolderItem = objFolder.ParseName(objFile.Name)
 Set colVerbs = objFolderItem.Verbs
 blnOptionFound = False
 For Each objVerb In colVerbs
 If LCase(Replace(objVerb.name, "&", "")) = strVerb Then
 objVerb.DoIt
 blnOptionFound = True
 End If
 Next
 If blnOptionFound = True Then
 WScript.Echo strFilePath & strMessage
 Else
 WScript.Echo "Unable to " & strMode & " " & strFilePath & _
 " from the " & strLocation & ". The verb does not exist."
 End If
 Else
 WScript.Echo "Could not find " & strFilePath
 End If
 End If
 Next
 End If
 Next
 Next

The first 15 lines of that code block take care of the special case requirement to unpin all items from the specified location.  It binds to the folder used for the user pinned items to a location, and performs the verb “Unpin from <location>” on each file in that location.The final block of code in that section takes care of the pinning or unpinning of individual items from the specified location, again by performing the verb “Pin to <location>” or “Unpin from <location>” on each file path specified.

Finally, we close out the For and If statements used within the code.

Next
 End If
 Next
 Next

And that’s it. I hope this script is useful to any system administrators wanting to easily manage user pinned items. Download the code in in a .txt file here: Pin and Unpin Start Menu and Taskbar items in Windows 7

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