How I pin a lnk to start screen only in powershell

Question

Hi Team
I am the application developer on Ford provingground.
I get the job to automate deployment on tablets on my side.
The only issue that a have is to pin link to the start menu with powershell, but I did all sort of thing.
But it don't work, do you have some code snippet how to do it.
And is this still supperted with powershell.

Answer 1

If you limit the scope just Windows:

$W ScriptShell = New-Object -ComObject W Script.Shell 
$shortcut = $W ScriptShell.CreateShortcut($shortcutPath) 
$shortcut.TargetPath = $targetPath 
$shortcut.Save()

NOTE: For some reason I had to change the "WScript..." to "W Script" before I was able to get this answer to be accepted by the forum editor. Remove the space (on the 1st and 2nd lines) before you try running the code.

Answer 2

I found this:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16233165/how-to-pin-application-icon-to-the-metro-start-screen-in-windows-8-programmatica?rq=4

It's for Windows 8, but it's for the "Metro" style of the start menu. It may still work.

If you'd like to try it, here's the PowerShell version (UNTESTED!!):

function PinToStart {
    param (
        [string]$filePath
    )
    $success = $false
    # Break into file name and path
    $directoryName = [System.IO.Path]::GetDirectoryName($filePath)
    $fileName = [System.IO.Path]::GetFileName($filePath)
    # Load shell32.dll
    $shell32 = Add-Type -MemberDefinition @"
    [DllImport("shell32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    public static extern int LoadString(IntPtr hInstance, int uID, System.Text.StringBuilder lpBuffer, int nBufferMax);
"@ -Name "Shell32" -Namespace "Win32" -PassThru
    $hShell32 = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::GetHINSTANCE([System.Reflection.Assembly]::GetExecutingAssembly().GetModules()[0])
    if ($hShell32 -ne [IntPtr]::Zero) {
        # Get the localized translation of 'Pin to Start' verb
        $szPinToStartLocalized = New-Object System.Text.StringBuilder 256
        $nPinToStartLocalizedLength = [Win32.Shell32]::LoadString($hShell32, 51201, $szPinToStartLocalized, $szPinToStartLocalized.Capacity)
        if ($nPinToStartLocalizedLength -gt 0) {
            # Create the shell object
            $shell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
            $folder = $shell.Namespace($directoryName)
            if ($folder -ne $null) {
                $item = $folder.ParseName($fileName)
                if ($item -ne $null) {
                    $verbs = $item.Verbs()
                    for ($i = 0; $i -lt $verbs.Count; $i++) {
                        $verb = $verbs.Item($i)
                        if ($verb.Name -eq $szPinToStartLocalized.ToString()) {
                            $verb.DoIt()
                            $success = $true
                            break
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::FreeHGlobal($hShell32)
    }
    return $success
}
# Example usage
PinToStart "C:\Path\To\Your\File.txt"

The original code was written in C++ so you can't (without some work) use the Add-Type cmdlet to add the original code to your program as you can with C#.