Windows 10: What does Pin To Start actually do?

Fresh installation of Windows 10.

When I right click an app in the Start Menu (All apps) and select Pin to Start, nothing happens. Nothing about the Start Menu changes. I have multiple Pins but I see no change in the Start Menu.

Note that Pin to Taskbar does work.

What is supposed to happen?

Bruce.

:)

 

Drag-and-Drop to Start button: "Pin to Start menu" prompt appears, but nothing gets pinned to the menu

When I drag various shortcuts from my desktop to Start button, a floating prompt appears over the Start button. It says: "Pin to Start menu". However, dropping shortcuts over Start button does not pin anything to Start menu. Nothing at all happens, actually.

So, what is the meaning of that "Pin to Start menu" prompt? Any why doesn't it really pin anything?

 

Right mouse click --> Pin to start does nothing

Right click on on .exe file and Pin to start does nothing

Steps to reproduce

1. Right click on .exe file

2. select Pin to Start from menu

Expected behaviour: a tile is created on the Start menu

Actuall behaviour: nothing happens.

As I don't believe in anti-virus software no anti-virus was installed.

 

it should add the item to the right hand side of the start menu

this might fix it

try going into Settings App, Personalization, then set start menu to full screen
try pinning item again
go back to the above setting and turn off the use full screen start

this sometimes fixes odd things like this on the start menu

 

Ah, that helped me discover 2 things. I was assuming the right side was reserved for Tile apps only, so I was assuming I would see my regular app Pins on the left side (where I'd prefer them anyway). I also discovered that nothing changes on the Start Menu unless I reboot. Changing to fullscreen and back each require a reboot to see the change. Pinning now works (to the right side) but also requires a reboot to see). Extremely Inconvenient as my upgraded Windows 7 PC takes over 7 minutes to reboot. Are the required reboots normal for the Start Menu?

 

I've never had to reboot after pinning an item to start. Have pinned about 12 items.

 

Instead of restarting the PC another way to get this done is by going into the task manager and restarting Explorer.

 

That does indeed work for me. But I find it difficult to believe either killing explorer or rebooting is what MS intended for their new Start Menu.

If having to kill Explorer or rebooting is not normal, then I'm hoping someone can help me fix whatever is wrong with my PC.

Thanks.
Bruce.

 

Fast question.. did you have this issue when you upgraded from your previous OS??

 

I had this issue on a clean install , but after 2-3 reboots , now i can pin without restart.

 

I upgraded from Windows 7 Home Premium yesterday, but didn't get around to playing with customizing the Start Menu until today. I wasted a couple of hours trying to figure out what I should expect Pin and Unpin to do.

If you mean did I have menu trouble with Windows 7, no. No trouble at all.

Bruce.

 

Ok, I have finally seen it work but it's extremely intermittent. Usually Pinning a program from the left of the menu doesn't work. But every once in a while right clicking on an exe and selecting Pin and Unpin to Start does work. The Start Menu changes within a few second of the action. It works a few times and then quits again. But I haven't yet discovered a pattern or predictably recreate. It's beginning to smell of a bug.

Bruce.

 

Well, I'm outta ideas. It's not working at all anymore. Dragging the right side icons around works nicely. Pin to Taskbar works nicely. Ping to Start does not, neither right clicking on an All apps item, or right clicking on an exe file.

The pinned item list never updates unless I restart Explorer. There must be some sort of signalling that isn't working. The list of pinned programs is clearly getting updated because restarting Explorer works, but somehow the Start menu isn't being told to update what's on the screen.

I know nothing about how pinning works under the covers so I guess I'm at a dead end. Can't think of anything else but a clean install but that isn't in the cards for the present.

 

Thought of one more thing to try. I logged out and logged in as Adminstrator (it's enabled). That doesn't work either so whatever it is it isn't limited to my account only.

 

I had a similar issue like this but in my case the issue was Kapersky Internet Security 2015 that was carried over from my Windows 8.1 upgrade and not fully compatible with Windows 10.

The solution was to un-install Kapersky only saving activation data, reboot, turn Windows Defender off then installing the latest Kaspersky Internet Security (Version 2016 (16.0.0.614en).