pintaskbar

With Shell Commands a lot of newbies typically give them a blank stare not really understanding what they are.  Simply put they are shortcuts to items within the Windows operating system that may not have a static path.  By using a shell command you can let the OS bring you to the correct location with little effort.

A perfect example of this is a user directory. If you needed to get to their Documents directory or other path that typically includes the username in it, there is not a static path for this location as the name of the user is always different.  To get around this you can use a shell command and then let the operating system bring you to the correct location.  The shell command of “shell:My Music” would instead bring you directly to the users Music directory.

There are many ways that this can be used but my favorite way in Windows 7 is to “fix” the new Taskbar and pin anything I want to it.   Go HERE to see the full list of Shell Commands.

To then be able to access your selected location via the Taskbar do the following:

  1. Right click anywhere on the desktop then select New -> Shortcut
  2. A dialog box will then open, enter your selected shell command into this box and select Next
  3. Enter in the name that corresponds to the shortcut and Select Finish
  4. Right click on the newly created shortcut and select Properties
  5. Select the Shortcut tab at the top
  6. Select the Change Icon button
  7. In the browse box navigate to C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll and select OK
  8. Select any Icon you desire for the corresponding shortcut an select OK
  9. Select OK again to finalize your icon choice
  10. Right click on the newly created shortcut and select “Pin to Taskbar”
  11. You may then delete the shortcut on the desktop and keep only the one pinned to the Taskbar

Obviously these commands can be used in other ways than just pinning to the Taskbar and there are many more commands than are currently listed here, I just haven’t found them yet.  One of my favorite methods of utilizing many of these locations is to include the shortcuts themselves on my pendrive.  When I am working on a computer other than my own it is very handy to quickly access these locations.

If you would like to have pinable shortcuts to directories you can do so by using paths like this “explorer.exe D:\”.