Windows 10: How to customize pinned Start Menu icon?

Discus and support How to customize pinned Start Menu icon? in Windows 10 Support to solve the problem; I have a shortcut on the left-hand side of Start Menu that opens my Gmail in a Chrome window. This shortcut is actually a shortcut to chrome.exe with a... Discussion in 'Windows 10 Support' started by AndreyT, Feb 20, 2017.

  1. AndreyT Win User

    How to customize pinned Start Menu icon?


    I have a shortcut on the left-hand side of Start Menu that opens my Gmail in a Chrome window. This shortcut is actually a shortcut to chrome.exe with a bunch of command-line arguments that make it open my Gmail page right away. The shortcut has a custom "red enevelope" icon. It is displayed in the left-hand side of Start Menu with that icon.

    Now, I want to pin that icon to the "tile" side (right-hand side) of Start Menu. However, when I do that it immediatly appears as a tile with the regular Chrome icon. But I don't want it to use the regular Chrome icon. I want to see it there with that "red enevelope" icon - the same it uses on on the left-hand side of Start Menu.

    How can I achieve that?

    :)
     
    AndreyT, Feb 20, 2017
    #1

  2. Microsoft solitaire games

    Find anything you want pinned to Start in the alphabetical Apps list in Start Menu, right click to Pin To Start. Drag the tile to where you want it, resize to make it the size you want to get Live Notifications (Mail, News, Weather, etc).

    There is more here about customizing the Start Menu to your desires: 10 Ways to Customize the Windows 10 Start Menu

    I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and let us know how it goes. I will keep working with you until it's resolved.
     
    Greg Carmack - Windows MVP, Feb 20, 2017
    #2
  3. How do I customize Pinned shortcuts?

    I have various Shortcuts pinned on my "Start Menu". Some of them are shortcuts to folders, and others are shortcuts to websites that were pinned using Microsoft Edge.

    The problem Im running into is that a lot of them have the same icon and label. So, unless I remember which order I put the Icon in, I don't know which Icon is which, especially when I need the icon "Small"

    Question: How do I relabel a pin and change its icon?
     
    VarxtisFoh, Feb 20, 2017
    #3
  4. Bree New Member

    How to customize pinned Start Menu icon?

    When you pin that shortcut to the 'tiles' side of Start you are actually creating a second copy of the shortcut. It is this copy that you need to customise. To find it, right-click on the tile. Select 'More > Open file location'. This opens File Explorer with the shortcut already selected. This is the one you should set a custom icon for, which will then appear on the Tile.
     
  5. AndreyT Win User
    No, it doesn't seem to be the case. When I do 'More > Open file location' on the pinned Gmail tile, it opens exactly the same location as the one that's opened when I do 'More > Open file location' on the original Gmail icon in the menu.

    And, of course, the shortcut in that location shows the proper icon. But the pinned tile does not want to show that icon.

    So, it appears that it does not really create a second copy of the shortcut.
     
    AndreyT, Feb 20, 2017
    #5
  6. Bree New Member
    Hmmm, I tried it with a tile for a pinned portable app, and it worked for that.

    How did you make the Gmail shortcut on the left side in the first place? What file location do you get when you 'open file location?'
     
  7. AndreyT Win User
    I made it using Chrome 'More Tools > Add to desktop' command. This creates a folder under 'Start Menu\Programs' named 'Chrome Apps'. The full path is (in my case)

    C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Chrome Apps

    Chrome places the shortcuts into that folder. They are ordinary Windows shortcuts that lead to 'chrome.exe' with some extra command-line parameters.

    When I pin this menu entry as a tile, the tile leads to the same location shown above.
     
    AndreyT, Feb 20, 2017
    #7
  8. Bree New Member

    How to customize pinned Start Menu icon?

    OK, I have a comparable shortcut I added to Windows Accessories to start IE with no add-ons. It is in:
    C:\Users\<my name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories
    and is an ordinary shortcut to iexplore.exe with some parameters:
    "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -extoff

    It originally showed the default IE icon on the list of All apps on the left Start menu. I pinned it to Start and it showed the same IE icon. I then did 'More > Open file location' and gave it a different icon. As you can see, both the All apps menu and the Tile show the custom icon now.


    How to customize pinned Start Menu icon? [​IMG]


    This was done with version 1607, what version does Winver say you have? It may be that this doesn't work on earlier versions, the Start menu had a lot of changes from that of 1511.

    I suggest you try changing the icon to something else, then back to your preferred icon after you have pinned it to Start. This may kick Windows into showing the correct icon on the Tile.
     
  9. Edwin New Member
    Chrome has it's own exclusive 'Visual Elements' that are used for any shortcut that invokes the Chrome.exe, that is why Google Chrome's tile never matches your accent color.
    You would need to change the visual elements in the highlighted location, as I have done, but you can't make a different one for every shortcut.


    How to customize pinned Start Menu icon? [​IMG]
     
    Edwin, Feb 20, 2017
    #9
  10. AndreyT Win User
    The fact that the same icon is shown in both places indicates that in your case no separate copy of that icon was created either.
    I have the latest version of Windows 10 Pro x64: version 1607 Build 14393.693. The behavior I'm observing is apparently specific to Chrome, which is why your experiments with IE show a different result.
     
    AndreyT, Feb 20, 2017
    #10
  11. AndreyT Win User
    I see.

    In order to achieve what I want I can probably try to work around this limitation by obfuscating the fact that the shortcut leads to 'chrome.exe'.

    I created a small .bat file:

    Code: @echo off start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" %*[/quote] and created another shortcut to that .bat file in the same area with the same set of command-line arguments as the original Gmail shortcut.

    It works. And now I can customize the icon in any way I want.
     
    AndreyT, Feb 20, 2017
    #11
  12. Edwin New Member
    and created another shortcut to that .bat file in the same area with the same set of command-line arguments as the original Gmail shortcut.

    It works. And now I can customize the icon in any way I want.[/quote] *Thumbs
     
    Edwin, Feb 20, 2017
    #12
  13. AndreyT Win User

    How to customize pinned Start Menu icon?

    Finally, the whole thing can be implemented without introducing a .bat file simply by creating a shortcut to
    Code: cmd /C start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" <whatever chrome params you need>[/quote] Configure the shortcut to "Run: Minimised" to avoid seeing the shell window opening and closing.
     
    AndreyT, Feb 20, 2017
    #13
  14. StuT Win User
    AndreyT... this cmd solution works wonders for Chrome webpages that you don't mind opening to the site without the main Chrome application tabs, toolbars, etc., and it allows me to use my own icons on the start menu. However, for Netflix, I need the main Chrome toolbars in order to access the Cast... feature, to cast Netflix to the TV with Chromecast. Any ideas on how that could be achieved?
     
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How to customize pinned Start Menu icon?

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