How to Pin a URL Shortcut on Windows 7 Taskbar

When you try to drag a URL shortcut to the Windows 7 taskbar, that shortcut is not pinned to the taskbar but instead it is pinned the jumplist of your default browser. Now this is frustrating because you wanted to put the shortcut to the taskbar, so that you an click on it to open the respective website. But do not worry, there is a workaround to put the URL shortcut itself on the taskbar. Here is how :

URL shortcut pinned on the Windows 7 Taskbar

  1. Right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose New → Shortcut as shown. This will start the Create Shortcut wizard.

    Create new shortcut on desktop

  2. Type in %windir%\explorer.exe followed by a space and then the website address (for which you want to create the shortcut) in the text field. In the following example, we will be creating a shortcut to https://www.trishtech.com. Click Next to continue.
    %windir%\explorer.exe https://www.trishtech.com/

    Create Shorcut wizard in Windows 7

  3. Type in the shortcut name of your choice. Typically you would type something like Visit www.trishtech.com. Click Finish to create the shortcut.

    Creating s URL shortcut on desktop

  4. Right-click on the newly created shortcut on your desktop and choose Properties from the right-click menu. This would open the Properties window for the new shortcut. In the Properties window, choose Shortcut tab and then click on the Change Icon button.

    Changing icon for the shortcut

  5. Type in %programfiles%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe in the Look for the icons in thie file field and press Enter. Then click on the Internet shortcut icon as shown. It is located in the 4th row and 2nd column. Click OK to save the settings.

    Change the shortcut's icon to Internet Explorer shortcut

  6. Click OK in the Properties window to set the icon for the newly created shortcut on Desktop.
  7. Now the final step. Right-click on the newly created shortcut and choose Pin to Taskbar. And you would see the URL shortcut in your Windows 7 taskbar.

    Pinning the URL shortcut on the Windows 7 Taskbar

6 comments

  1. Creates okay (in Win7), all good till final step. Does not give the option Pin to TAskbar. Any suggestion? I await your reply…

  2. I keep getting Windows cannot find the file %programfiles%Internet Exploreriexplore.exe.

      1. Thank you so much!
        But I’m still having a really odd issue. If I do the above steps and go to something like http://cnn.com, it works fine. I really need to create and pin the icon for this site:

        When I do that and click on the link, it opens my “Documents” folder! Why in the world would it do that?! Like I say, if I change the adddress to anything else, it works…change it to the above and it goes to Documents. Odd??
        Thanks again! JD.

          1. You sure do know your stuff! You never know, maybe one day you can make a career out of it! 😉
            Thank you very much…worked well indeed!!

            JD

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